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HISTORY 



OF THE 



ART OF MAGIC 

CONTAINING 

ANECDOTES, EXPLANATION OF TRICKS 

AND A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

ALEXANDER HERRMANN 



BY 

T. T. TIMAYENIS 

MEMBER OP THE ORDER OT THE ROYAL CROSS OF GREECE 




NEW YORK 

PEESS OF J. J. LITTLE & 00, 
10 to 20 Astor Place 

1887 






COPTRTGHT, 188T, BX 

T. T. TIMAYENIS. 



* * 



TO THE READER. 



From the fertile fields of ancient and modern literature, 
I have culled the facts relating to the history of the art of 
magic, to which the earlier pages of this little book are de- 
voted. To give credit for everything recorded would seem 
out of place in a work of this kind, encumbering .its pages 
with useless data and difficult names. Such a course 
would be at variance with my object, which is to present the 
wonderful history of the art of magic in a brief and inter- 
esting manner for the information and amusement of the 
general reader. 



THE ART OF MAGIC 



It would require vast learning, Herculean labor, and a 
longer period of time than is allotted to the life of man to 
complete a history of the Art of Magic. Suffice it to say- 
that as many different forms of magic exist as there are 
nations upon the earth. No subject, indeed, is more attract- 
ive and instructive than that of magic. It has had its in- 
fluence on almost every phase of human thought ; it is 
found in the fountain-heads from which spring history and 
civilization. 

The limits of the present book, undertaken at the request 
of Mr. Alexander Herrmann, the best known prestidigi- 
tateur of the modern school of 'magic, permit only a brief 
synopsis of this wonderful art from the earliest to the pres- 
ent time. 

Magic has often been erroneously considered as exclu- 
sively of Persian origin, which error the Athenian philoso- 
pher Plato appears to have originated. It is not possible 
to name any one country as the birthplace of magic. We 
must look to the continent of Asia, to Asia at large, as its 
native place. No section of the world is richer than Asia in 
wildernesses, deep sequestered valleys, mournful solitudes 
and gloomy caverns ; in fact, its deserts are as numerous 
and extensive as its mighty rivers and inland seas. 

That a secluded life, and especially one passed in the silence 
and solitude of the desert, is conducive to the production of 

1 



2 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

inward visions is shown by the history of the East in all 
ages, where these deserts have always been regarded as the 
favorite residence of spirits and apparitions. Even Isaiah, 
the greatest and most influential of the Old Testament proph- 
ets, speaks very plainly on this subject : "And Babylon, 
the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaidees' excel- 
lency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomor- 
rah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt 
in, from generation to generation ; neither shall the Ara- 
bian pitch tent there ; neither shall the shepherds make 
their fold there. But the wild beasts of the desert shall lie 
there ; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures ; 
and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs* shall dance there." 

In the book of Enoch passages are met with recording 
instances in which spirits were banished to desert places by 
magic. In the middle ages all secluded spots, by-paths, 
deserts and solitudes were especially the trysting places of 
spirits of every kind. The inhabitants of the Faroe and of 
the Scottish islands have always been celebrated as particu- 
larly subject to the influence of spirits and the devil ; and 
Caesar and Plutarch both mention the British Isles as de- 
serted and melancholy solitudes. We are told that in Shake- 
speare's time (1564-1616) men were apt during the hours 
of darkness to see a supernatural being in every bush, and 
they could not enter a cemetery without expecting to en- 
counter some departed spirit Wandering among the graves 
or commissioned to reveal something momentous and deeply 
affecting to the survivors. Fairies danced in the moonlight 
glades or something preternatural perpetually occurred to 

* In ancient Greek mythology the satyrs were spirits, half -human, 
half-bestial, that haunted the woods and mountains. 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 3 

fill the living with admiration and awe. Shakespeare, in 
his great tragedy of Macbeth, delineated the beliefs and 
superstitions of his age by introducing witches on the stage. 

The original and the best description of magic art was 
grounded on this aphorism : " Man may become, by the 
assistance and co-operation of spiritual powers, and the ca- 
pacities of his divine origin, capable of a higher sphere of 
activity, as well without as within himself, which gives him 
dominion not only over himself, but also over surrounding 
nature/' 

In the above aphorism we have, as it has been stated, the 
original and the best description of magic art. The com- 
mon belief, however, in later years was that which included 
all occult science under the name of magic. Under the 
title "occult science " was understood enchantment and any 
extraordinary operations, such as making gold, exorcising 
spirits, reading the hand, the evil-eye, power over the 
elements, and the transformation of human beings into 
animals. The theories of spiritual apparitions, and the 
transitions of demons into the human body, take their rise 
in the philosophy of Heraclitus, according to whom demons 
are attracted by matter. * 

Everything that could be considered as wonderful, such as 
the workings of natural powers in the magnet, or the divin- 
ing wand, or any surprising action, was regarded at a later 
period as magic and particularly as black magic, or the 
black art. 

* Heraclitus was bora about 535 b. c. in Ephesus, and is one of the 
most subtle and profound of the metaphysicians of ancient Greece, 
and it has truly been said that only of late years has he had his true 
position assigned to him in the history of philosophy. 



4 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

The above superstitious beliefs respecting magic were, 
comparatively speaking, of recent origin. Even the dogma 
of Heraclitus (535 b. c. ) is modern when applied to magic ; 
for magic art may well be said to have made its appearance 
almost simultaneously with the creation of man. 

That magic descended by tradition from the early ages, is 
shown everywhere by the primitive records of the human 
race. It is, in truth, intimately connected with the very 
nature of man. 

Magic was in fact nothing more nor less in the early times 
than the wonderful power of the human mind to look into 
the future, or to influence others without material means. 
This natural power of man is, however, not frequently met 
with, and is not of that kind which every mind is able to 
appreciate according to its value. The knowledge of such 
rare phenomena and their causes could, therefore, in remote 
times, only be known to the wisest sages and rulers. These 
preserved it as their secret learning and transmitted it to 
their children under the cloak of religion, with which all 
their secrets were covered. 

Magic derives its name from Magi (Greek jxdyoi), and 
the word Mag was used by Jeremiah (629 b. c.) to indicate 
a Babylonian priest. The magi were men of austere habits 
and were the most learned men of their times. A higher 
knowledge of nature was implied in the term magic, with 
which religion, and particularly astronomy, were associated. 
The initiated and their disciples were called magicians — that 
is, the wise — which was also the case later among the Greeks. 
Plato especially praises the deep religious awe of the ma- 
gicians, while both Lucian and Cicero speak of them as 
"learned." 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 5 

Originally the magi were either themselves princes or 
belonged to the higher class of society. Justice, truth, and 
the power of self-sacrifice were the qualities of a magician. 
The neglect of any one of these virtues was punished in the 
most cruel manner. Cambyses, a Persian monarch, 1529 
B. c, having commanded the execution of a priest (magician) 
who had allowed himself to be bribed, had his skin stretched 
over the chair in which his son and successor sat in his 
judicial capacity. 

That magic proceeded originally from Asia as a peculiar 
and inborn gift of the human soul is shown not only by 
Moses, but the oldest known records of humanity, as the 
Zendavestas, the Vedas, etc. 

In early ages men were firmly convinced that the most 
perfect half, the real man, had originated in the world of 
spirits. From this world he derived his vital energies, 
being as little able to sever himself from its influence as the 
boughs from the tree on which they grow. 

In the very earliest ages, when man had just left the hand 
of nature, and still sat at the feet of the Creator ; when the 
senses were still imperfect, and the limbs were not freely 
under the command of the will, man then communicated 
directly with spirits. In the Genesis of Moses, the patriarchs 
ate bread and milk with Elohim and set before them a fatted 
calf. Homers gods, too, communicated directly with men. 
At that time there were no ghosts or demons, and the ideas 
of spirit and matter were not yet distinct. As soon, however, 
as the primitive community was broken up by a more freely 
expanding use of the senses; as soon as men had eaten of 
the tree of knowledge, and wished to free themselves from 
natural laws, that they might go their own way without fur- 



6 TEE ART OF MAGIC. 

ther obedience, then was the Creator no longer in Eden, and 
the peaceful community was destroyed, for the tree of life 
was not the tree of knowledge — He who sees God cannot live. 

In the laws of Manu, who lived thirteen hundred years 
before Christ, we find definite enactments against a perfected 
but misused form of magic, just as similar laws are con- 
tained in the Books of Moses. In the oldest Chinese writings 
we also find sorcery mentioned as an art. Among the 
Chaldeans and Babylonians sorcery and magical astrology 
were as old as their history. The pure original idea of 
magic, as a close study of nature, was, however, soon lost, or 
at least speedily degenerated. The belief in magic peculiar 
to the human mind took the form among the good of white 
magic, among the bad of black magic, so that the study of 
magic degenerated, rather leaning to the darkness of super- 
stition than raised to the light of wisdom. What was still 
worse, without believing in a devil it led people to cultivate 
the arts of the devil. Even at the time of Zoroaster, who 
is considered the first and earliest magician of the world, 
magic was misused, and connected with unholy efforts and 
the black art. 

Among the Persians the magi represented the priesthood, 
and magic was synonymous with their religious rites. Sooth- 
saying was regarded as a higher revelation by the gods, and 
to make themselves susceptible to the prophetic spirit and 
to propitiate the spirits, they used the most powerful 
prayers and chants. To bring themselves into closer com- 
munion with the gods the magi led a life peculiar to them- 
selves, their chief commands being to abstain from wine 
and to eat but little animal food. Everything which could 
excite the senses was absolutely forbidden. 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 7 

Their mode of life was strict and their first law purity. 
Twice each day they were obliged to wash ; their garments 
were of cotton or linen, and their shoes were made from the 
papyrus. Their revenues were derived from farming their 
own land, and from offerings voluntarily given. The money 
thus derived was placed in a common treasury, from which 
the guardians of the temple received their salaries. Their 
food consisted principally of vegetables, but also occasionally 
of flesh, which was first inspected by properly authorized 
persons, and, being found healthy and sound, was marked by 
a peculiar seal, for they knew that eruptions, various diseases 
of the eyes, and other ailments arose from bad food. Pork 
was only eaten once a month, at full moon ; fish, particu- 
larly sea-fish, was also forbidden them. 

One great characteristic of magic is the fixity with which 
magical formulas framed thousands of years ago hold on 
almost unchanged to this day. To understand this, it must 
be borne in mind that, if there were any practical use in such 
rules as those followed by the magi, they would have been 
improved by experience into new shapes. But, they being 
worthless and incapable of improvement, the motive of 
change is absent, and the old precepts have held their ground, 
handed down by faithful but stupid tradition from age to 
age. We, therefore, venture to say that magic to-day in 
Africa, Australia, or any part of Asia, is essentially the same 
as it was thousands of years ago. We do not mean that 
magic throughout the world is the same, for each nation 
has a distinct form of magic peculiar to itself, but the 
various forms current to-day, especially in semi-civilized or 
barbarous portions of the world, are exactly the same as 
they have been from time immemorial. 



8 THE ABT OF MAGIC. 

Let us now take a bird's-eye view of magic as practised 
in different parts of the world. In early times there was 
a universally accepted belief that living together and breath- 
ing upon any person produced bad as well as good effects, and 
if practised by a healthy person restored an undermined 
constitution. This belief is to this day extant throughout 
the coast of Asia Minor. People deem it injurious for a 
child to sleep with a grown person. In ancient times it was 
believed that to eradicate deeply rooted diseases a young and 
fresh life was necessary. Especially pure virgins and young 
children were supposed able to free persons from diseases by 
their breath and even by their blood. The patient was to be 
breathed upon by them and sprinkled with their blood. To 
have bathed in the blood would have been better, could it 
have been possible. History supplies us with many remark- 
able instances of restoration to health, either by living with 
healthy persons or being breathed upon by them. One of, 
the most noteworthy is recorded in the Bible, of King David : 
"Now King David was old and stricken in years, and they 
covered him with clothes, but he got no heat. Wherefore 
his servants said unto him, 'Let there be sought for my 
lord the king a young virgin, and let her stand before the 
king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, 
that my lord the king may get heat ; '" so they sought for 
a damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found 
Abishag, a Shunammifce, and brought her to the king. 

Bacon makes the remark that the girl probably rubbed 
the king with myrrh and other balsamic substances, accord- 
ing to the custom of Persian maidens. 

Pliny recommends breathing on the forehead as a remedy. 
Galen reckons among the most certain outward remedies for 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 9 

bodily weakness young persons who were laid on the bed, so as 
to coyer the body of the sufferer. Eeinhart calls liying with 
the young the restoration of the old. Bartholini says the 
same, and that it is a preventive to the chilliness of old age. 
Eudolph of Hapsburg is said, when very old and decrepit, 
to have been accustomed to kiss, in the presence of their 
relations, the daughters and wives of princely, ducal, and 
noble personages, and to have derived strength and renova- 
tion from their breath. The Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, 
near the end of his life, was advised by a Jewish physician 
to have young and healthy boys laid across his stomach, in- 
stead of using fermentations. Johannes Damascenus, or 
Eabbi Moses, states that for lameness and gout nothing bet- 
ter could be applied than a young girl laid across the affected 
part. Eeinhart says young dogs are also of great service, 
which physicians lay, in certain cases, upon the abdomen of 
the patient. 

The story of Luc. Clodius Hermippus, who reached a 
very great age by being continually breathed upon by young 
girls, is well known. Kohausen records an inscription which 
was discovered at Eome by an antiquary, by name Gomar. 
It was cut on marble, and run as follows : 

To iEsculapius and Health 

This is erected by 

L. Clodius Hermippus, 

Who 

By the breath of young girls 

^ Lived 115 years and 5 days, 

At which physicians were not a little 

Surprised. 

Successive generations, lead such a life ! 



10 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

HEALING BY WOEDS. 

"Is not my word as a fire ? saith the Lord; and like a 
hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces ?" (Jer. xxiii. 29.) 

Healing by words was common in the early ages, particu- 
larly in the Church, and was used not only against the devil 
and magic arts, but also against all diseases. Not only did 
the early Christians heal by words, but the old magicians 
performed their wonders by magical formulas. The Egyp- 
tians were great believers in the magic power of words. The 
Greeks were also well acquainted with the power of words, 
and give frequent testimony of this knowledge in their 
poems. Orpheus lulled the storm by his song, and Ulysses 
stopped the bleeding of wounds by the use of certain words. 
Cato is said to have possessed formulas for curing sprains, 
while Marcus Varro is reported to have cured tumors in a 
similar fashion. 

This is not the place to enter more fully into this subject, 
but it may not be superfluous to remember that in every 
word there is a magical influence, and that each word is in 
itself the breath of the internal and moving spirit. A word 
of love, of comfort, of promise, is able to strengthen the 
timid, the weak, and the physically ill. But words of 
hatred, censure, enmity, or menace lower our confidence 
and self-reliance. How easily the worldling, who rejoices 
over good fortune, is cast down under adversity ! Despair 
only enters where religion is not — where the mind has no 
universal and Divine Comforter. But there is, probably, no 
one entirely proof against curses or blessings. 

HANDS. 

By the touch of the hands visions and the power of 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 11 

prophecy are produced. When God desires to inspire a 
prophet, what expression do we find employed ? 

" Then the hand of the Lord came upon him, and he saw 
and prophesied." When Elisha was asked by the kings of 
Israel and Judah concerning the war with the Moabites, he 
called a minstrel, " And it came to pass, when the minstrel 
played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him," etc. 

God has no human hands. The Bible, therefore, evi- 
dently indicates the divine art, by the means common among 
men when any one was to be thrown into ecstasy and should 
prophesy. 

TALISMANS. 

Talismans or amulets are substances, particularly metals, 
minerals, roots, and herbs, which were worn on the body, 
either as preventives against or cures for disease. To this 
day in Africa the natives make extensive use of " fetiches," 
which are claws, fangs, roots, stones, and any other objects 
fancied to be inhabited by spirits or invested with super- 
human power. These fetiches the negroes trust against 
evil fortune, with a confidence which no failure can shake 
further than to cause the unlucky bearer to discard a par- 
ticular fetich which has failed, and to replace it by a more 
successful one. 

In ancient times, the talismans were supposed to possess 
the power of warding off misfortune or the effect of poison, 
and were inscribed with astrological signs and numbers. In 
later years, these talismans and amulets degenerated into 
the wearing of bloodstones, loadstones, necklaces of amber, 
images of saints, consecrated objects, etc. 

Talismans were most frequently used by the Orientals, 
who even at the present time employ them. People went 



12 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

so far as to believe it possible to be placed in communica- 
tion with the world of spirits by the aid of talismans ; that 
by their use the loye and esteem of men were to be gained ; 
and that by the mere wearing of such talismans others could 
be brought into any wished for condition of mind. Orpheus, 
for instance, says that it was possible to fix the attention of 
an audience, and to increase their pleasure, by the use of 
the loadstone. 

A particular power was ascribed to precious stones. 

An old writer states as follows : 

The diamond has the power of depriving the loadstone of 
its virtue, and is beneficial to sleep-walkers and the insane. 
The Arabian diamond is said to guide iron towards the 
pole, and is therefore called magnetic by some. 

The agate disposes the mind to solitude. The Indian 
is said to quench thirst if held in the mouth. 

The amethyst banishes drunkenness and sharpens the wit. 

The red bezoar is preventive against poison. 

The garnet preserves health, produces a joyous heart, 
but discord between lovers. 

The sapphire makes the melancholy cheerful, if suspended 
round the neck, and maintains the power of the body. 

The red coral stops bleeding and strengthens digestion, 
if worn about the person. 

The crystal banishes bad dreams from the sleepers. 

The chrysolite, held in the hand, repels fever. 

The onyx reveals terrible shapes to the sleeper; worn 
about the neck, it prevents epileptic fits. 

The opal is a remedy for weak eyes. 

The emerald prevents epilepsy, unmasks the delusions 
of the devil, and sharpens the memory. 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 13 

Amber cures dysentery and is a powerful remedy for all 
affections of the throat. 

The topaz cures hemorrhoids and sleep-walking, relieves 
affections of the mind, and laid upon wounds stops the flow 
of blood. 

As it has been stated that to this day in Africa extensive 
use is made of the "fetiches," which are the talismans or 
amulets of the ancients, it may not be amiss to add a few 
words concerning magic as it still exists in Africa. 

In Africa the native sorcerer is the rain-maker, an office 
of the utmost importance among tribes who may perish of 
famine or disease after a long drought. It was the same in 
prehistoric times in that country. The African sorcerer 
has intercourse with demons. He is called every day to pre- 
dict the future of a fight or a bargain or to discover lost or 
stolen cattle. He professes to gain information from the 
spirits, or uses his various modes of divination, such as tak- 
ing omens from the cries of the eagle and the owl, the swim- 
ming of berries, or the moving of sticks in his own hands 
as they twitch spasmodically in nervous excitement. As 
with magicians everywhere, his trade is profitable but dan- 
gerous ; for if his arts of killing have been successful be- 
yond bearing, or if public opinion decides that he has wil- 
fully withheld the rain, he may be drowned or burned as 
miserably as one of the many victims he has condemned to 
death. 

In ancient Egypt there existed a system by lot of lucky 
and unlucky days of birth. To this day the sorcerers in 
Madagascar have a similar system which, carried out with 
stupid ferocity, has cost the lives of thousands of children 
born in an evil hour. When the magician declares their 



14 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

birth ill-omened, their fate is settled at once by putting 
them to death. This reminds us that not later than 1440 
Gilles de Laval, Baron de Eetz and Marshal of France (an 
officer of the highest military rank), was- burned for the 
crime of magic. It is alleged by Monstrelet that the mar- 
shal put to death, if we are^to believe his own confession, 
more than one hundred and sixty children and women in 
delicate condition, pour des pratiques de magie, i. e. , for the 
practices of magic. 

Magic among the ancient Egyptians was generally of a 
religious character. They have written formulas or docu- 
ments, some of which were couched in the following lan- 
guage : "I confide in the efficacy of that excellently written 
book given to-day into my hand, which repels lions through 
fascination, disables men, . . . which muzzles the 
mouths of lions, hyenas, wolves, . . . the mouth of all 
men who have bad faces, so as to paralyze their limbs." . 

Another point deserving attention is the appearance, in 
early Egypt, of the distinction between good and bad magic. 
Magical curative arts were practised by learned scribes or 
priests, and were doubtless in high esteem ; but when it 
came to attracting love by charms or philters, or paralyzing 
men by secret arts, this was held to be a crime. As long 
ago as the time of Eameses III. it is recorded that one Hai 
was accused of making images and paralyzing a man's hand, 
for which he was condemned to death. This reminds us 
that in 1453 Doctor Guillaume Edelin, professor in the Sor- 
bonne, was condemned to death for having, upon " undeni- 
able accusation and information," visited the nocturnal 
meetings of witches and for having worshipped the devil in 
the form of an image personating a goat. 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 15 

In divinatory magic the Babylonians had elaborate codes 
of rules, of which many have been preserved. Thus, "when 
a woman bears a child and at the time of birth its teeth are 
cut, the days of the prince will be long." Again, "If a 
dog goes to the palace and lies down on a throne, that palace 
will be burned." 

Diodorus Siculus, a Greek historian, born in Sicily, men- 
tions the skill of the Chaldean priests in various branches 
of magic ; their use of purifications, sacrifices, and chants 
to avert evil and obtain good j their foretelling by omens, 
dreams, prodigies, etc. 

Ancient Greek literature shows the Greeks to have been 
a people whose religion ran much into consulting oracle 
gods at many temples, of which the shrine of Apollo at 
Delphi was the chief. Kecromancy, i. e., the art of reveal- 
ing future events by communication with the dead, was ex- 
tensively practised. There was a famous oracle of the dead 
near the river Acheron in Thesprotiae, where the departing 
souls crossed on their way to Hades. The myth of Circe 
turning the companions of Odysseus into swine shows the 
barbaric belief in magical transformation of men into beasts : 

" Then mingling for them Pramnian wine with cheese, 
Meal, and fresh honey, and infusing drugs 
Into the mixture, — drugs which made them lose 
The memory of their home, — she handed them 
The beverage, and they drank. Then instantly 
She touched them with a wand, and shut them up 
In sties, transformed to swine in head and voice, 
Bristles and shape, though still the human mind 
Remained to them. Thus sorrowing they were driven 
Into their cells, where Circe flung to them 
Acorns of oak and ilex, and the fruit 
Of cornel, such as nourish wallowing swine." 



16 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

Not less clearly does the story of Medea and her caldron 
typify the witch-doctress with her drugs,, powerful both to 
kill and to bring to life. Medea was the daughter of iEetes, 
king of the Colchians, who are said to have founded a set- 
tlement on the east of the Black Sea and to the south of the 
Caucasus. Medea was one of the " wise women " (witches 
or sorceresses) of antiquity, and she took terrible revenge on 
Jason for his desertion of her for another bride. Medea 
may be considered one of the oldest witches in the magic 
art. Her witchcraft, as mentioned by Greek authors who 
lived about 600 b. a, was "old" even in their time. The 
worship of Hecate, the moon-goddess, sender of midnight 
phantoms, lent itself especially to the magicians. Hecate 
was the chief goddess who presided over magic arts and 
spells, for all incantations were performed by the light of 
the moon. Medea is in this respect closely associated with 
her worship. It is in an ancient Greek writer, Theocritus, 
where we really find the "original recipe" employed by the 
witches of Shakespeare. Theocritus, in one of his idyls, 
represents a passionate witch crying to Hecate, the moon, 
to shine clear while she compels, by sacrifice, her faithless 
lover, and goes through the magic ritual of love and hate, 
striving to bring her beloved one back to her by whirling 
the brazen rhomb, scattering bones with the scattered bar- 
ley, melting him to love by the melting wax, casting into 
the fierce flames a torn shred of his cloak and laurels, to 
crackle and blaze and be consumed, that his flesh shall be 
consumed likewise. This ancient witchcraft ascribed magic 
power to such filth as pounded lizards and the blood of 
creatures untimely dead, revolting messes made familiar to 
moderns, as it has been stated, by Shakespeare. 






THE ART OF MAGIC. 17 

The ancient Greeks liyed also in fear of "the evil-eye," as 
many still do, and they sought to avert its baneful influences 
by the means still in use, spitting, symbolic gestures, and 
the use of charms and amulets. 

As to ancient Rome, much of the magic in the Latin poets 
is only Greek sorcery in a Latin dress. We must not, how- 
ever, forget that from the earliest antiquity, and among all 
people, magic was often looked upon as a capital crime and 
was punished as such. Among the Jews magicians were 
sometimes severely dealt with, but for the most part they 
were left unmolested by the Greeks and Egyptians. The 
Romans enacted severe laws against those who practised 
magic, condemning to death by fire those given to "malefic 
arts," punishing with death their accomplices and associates, 
and sending into perpetual exile those having in their pos- 
session books on magic. The Romans enacted the above 
severe laws because, during those times of superstition, the 
astrologers * and magicians were so numerous in Rome that 
720 years after the foundation of that city, the Emperor, 
Augustus was obliged to issue a decree of banishment 
against them. The Emperor Claudius was still more severe, 
for, as Pliny informs us, he caused a Roman knight to be 
executed because he carried in his bosom an egg, supposed 
to be a serpent, in order to enchant his judges. This 
superstition was also very common among the Druids. 

It is evident that the Romans attributed magic properties 
to eggs. Pliny informs us that the Romans were wont, on 
eating eggs, "to break the shells into pieces, from fear of some 

* Astrology, the so-called science by which various nations, in various 
ways, have attempted to assign to the material heavens a moral influ- 
ence over the earth and its inhabitants. 



18 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

charm being practised against tliem. In many parts of 
France the custom exists to this day of breaking, with scru- 
pulous care, the shells of eggs, thus crushing the misfor- 
tunes to which the eater would otherwise have been exposed. 

On the other hand, Nero not only favored magic, but 
caused magicians to come from Arabia, the fertile land of 
superstitions and jugglery. He spent immense sums of 
money to learn the mysteries of the art. Constantine the 
Great enacted a law by which he decreed death against those 
magicians whose superstitions injured health or led men to 
impurity ; but he permitted the magic which cured sickness 
and averted storms. The Emperor Leo, however, condemned 
to death all magicians, without exception. 

Constantius also passed decrees of death against those 
who resorted to magic for curing diseases. It is said that 
he beheaded a young man who, in order to free himself from 
a pain in the stomach, repeated to himself the seven vowels 
of the Greek alphabet, and alternately placed his hand on a 
marble and on his stomach. Under the Eoman pontiffs the 
magicians suffered still more terribly. Commissions of in- 
quiry were appointed to deliver the country of sorcerers and 
of all who had recourse to the infernal art of magic. These 
" searchers" received orders to scour Germany, France, and 
Italy, where reports of magicians, sorcerers, etc., caused terror 
to weak minds and to those nurtured with superstition and 
prejudice. Proud of their mission, they inflicted the most 
excruciating torments that human ingenuity could invent, in 
order that those thus tortured might make such answers as 
their executioners desired. In this way many who were in- 
nocent confessed ; for, as a poet says, 

" Torture interrogates and suffering responds." 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 19 

By these means they transformed into deserts populous 
countries where they exercised their fatal inquisitorial 
power. Those who escaped took to flight. In the early 
centuries of the Eoman Church mention is often made of 
the word sorcery, and capital punishment was pronounced 
against those suspected of exercising the same in order to 
cause their enemies to perish, or for having attempted by 
false prophecies to introduce innovations into the state. It 
was, however, only toward the end of the thirteenth century 
that active measures were openly adopted against sorcery, 
which was denounced as a league with the enemy of mankind, 
a renunciation of the Supreme Being, an alliance with the 
spirit of darkness — in fine, as one of the most abominable 
of crimes. 

A bull of Pope Innocent VIII. served to stimulate the 
inquisitors. "We have learned," the bull declared, "that 
a large number of persons of both sexes do not fear to 
enter into relation with the infernal demons, and by their 
sorcery strike equally men and animals, render sterile the 
conjugal bed, cause the children of women to perish, as 
well as the offsprings of animals, and wither the wheat in 
the fields, the vines, the fruits of the trees, the grass and 
pastures." 

The consequences of this bull were frightful. In 1485 
Cumanus in one year burned alive 41 women ; toward the 
same epoch 100 men were burned in Italy. In 1515, 500 
women were executed in Geneva under the denomina- 
tion of Protestant sorcerers ; 48 more were burned in Ka- 
vensburg, and the inquisitor Eemi boasted of having caused 
to be executed in fifteen years more than 1,000 persons. 
Strange though it may seem, these persecutions only tended 



20 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

to extend the sphere and the influence of magic — a fact 
which proves that an opinion, however revolting or strange, 
finds ready martyrs the moment it is persecuted. Death 
only propagates it, ridicule alone extinguishes it. Follow- 
ing the bull of Innocent VIII., in 1484, documents of the 
same nature were issued by Alexander VI., Leo X. in 1521, 
and so on, but, as it has already been stated, they only served 
to increase the number of sorcerers. The population was, 
so to speak, divided into enchanters and enchanted. Del Rio 
assures us that in 1515 more than 500 were executed in Switz- 
erland, and more than 30,000 are said to have perished in 
France. In Germany, against which country the bull of 
Pope Innocent was^specially directed, sorcery " spread itself 
prodigiously." At Wiirtzburg, in the short space of two 
months, more than 157 persons were burned, among whom 
were children ranging from the age of 9 to 12. From 1660 
to 1664, in Linden, more than one-twentieth of the en- 
tire population was turned over to the executioner's tender 
mercies. One can safely assume that before the persecutions 
ceased 100,000 persons were sacrificed in Germany alone, by 
reason of the bulls of the Popes. In the beginning of the 
seventeenth century, the greater number of those sacrificed 
were innocent of any connection with magic, but being- 
handed over to torture , together with their nearest relatives 
and friends, a confession was secured which sent the victim 
to execution. 

There were many causes which tended to bring magic 
into discredit, such as its heathenish doctrines, enmities, ig- 
norance, superstition, scepticism, and the premature judg- 
ment of shallow authors. Magic, therefore, was classed 
with paganism, because some of its professors were heathen, 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 21 

or were considered to be such, or because the magic arts 
followed in the footsteps of heathenism, as, for instance, 
the belief current in Spain, that the devil was visibly seen 
to torment men. 

There is, perhaps, no country in the world where the 
popular beliefs respecting magic, sorcery, demonology, nec- 
romancy, airy spirits, nymphs, etc., were so deeply rooted 
as in Scotland and England. 

" Go, make thyself like to a nymph o' the sea; 
Be subject to no sight but mine ; invisible 
To every eyeball else. Go, take this shape, 
And hither come in't : hence, with diligence." Tempest. 

During the reign of Henry VIII., sorcery attracted the 
attention of the government, and the operations of magic 
and sorcery were deemed felony. In one year more than 
6,000 persons were executed in Scotland for the crime of 
demonology. Was it not Bishop Jewel who declared to 
Queen Elizabeth that sorcerers and magicians existed to an 
enormous degree throughout England, so much so, that 
"your subjects, your Majesty," he said, "languish unto 
death " ? 

Was not Joan of Arc, more properly Joanneta Dare, 
afterward known in France as Jeanne d'Arc (the Maid of 
Orleans), charged with sorcery by the English, who had 
been conquered by her bravery and enthusiasm ? Joan 
never learned to read or write, and received her sole 
religious instruction from her mother, who taught her to 
recite the Pater Noster, Ave Maria, and Credo. In her 
childhood she was noted for her abounding physical energy ; 
but her vivacity, so far from being tainted by any coarse or 



22 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

unfeminine trait, was the direct outcome of intense mental 
activity and an abnormally sensitive nervous temperament. 
This unfortunate young woman fell into the power of the 
English, after having, by the valor and enthusiasm which 
she displayed on various occasions, reanimated the wavering 
courage of the French, and inspired them with the hope of 
restoring liberty to their country. The people of England 
looked upon her as a sorceress ; those of France, as an in- 
spired heroine, while the educated classes of both coun- 
tries considered her neither the one nor the other, but 
only as an instrument that the celebrated Dunois, Count 
of Orleans, employed to carry out the role he had assigned 
to her. The Duke of Bedford, in whose hands Joan of 
Arc fell, took her life, in order to blacken her memory with 
the crime of sorcery, and cause her to lose the renown she 
had acquired in France. The decree of condemnation 
accused her of having frequented an old oak, under the 
branches of which was a fountain called the oak of destiny. 
The old sword and the white standard (it was of her own 
design embroidered with lilies and having on the one side 
the image of God seated on the clouds and holding the 
world in his hand, and on the other a representation of the 
Annunciation) she carried, were denounced as instruments 
prepared by the demons, with whom she was in league. 

Magic, however much hated and proscribed, was not the 
less believed in. Stringent laws were enacted against it 
even during the earliest times. In Leviticus, sorcery is pro- 
hibited under the penalty of death, and whenever mention 
of magic is made, it is done, not in a sceptical spirit, but 
with reprobation. When a soothsayer was looked upon as 
a false prophet, the inference was, not that magic itself was 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 23 

unreal, but that this particular magician was pretending to 
a supernatural power he did not possess. The literature of 
the middle ages shows us how unbroken the faith of even 
the educated classes remained in the reality of magic, and 
that its more respectable branches, such as astrology and 
alchemy, were largely followed, and indeed included in their 
scope much of the real science of the period. The final fall 
of magic began with the revival of science in the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries, when the question was raised 
whether the supposed effects of magic really took place or 
not. In our day the occult sciences are rapidly dying out 
among the educated classes of the civilized world, though 
astrology still has its votaries, and the communications in 
"spirit circles," by possessed mediums and spirit writing, 
are what would in old times have been classed as necromancy. 
But the influence of magic may yet be seen in the practice 
employed of foretelling changes in the weather by the 
moon's quarters, taking omens from seeing magpies and 
hearing a dog howl at night, the fear of spilling salt, the 
girls listening to the cuckoo to tell how soon they will be 
married, pulling off the row of leaves to settle what the 
lover's calling will be, and perhaps even compelling him to 
come by a pin struck through the rushlight. 

Looked at as a series of delusions, magic is distasteful to 
the modern mind, which, once satisfied of its practical futil- 
ity, is apt to discard it as folly unworthy of further notice. 

This, however, is hardly doing it justice, for, as we have 
shown, in the early developments of the human mind both 
religion and science were intimately connected with magic, 
whose various branches, unfruitful as they may be, are 
nevertheless growths from the tree of knowledge. 



24 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

Magic was yery early divided into two general classes — 
white and black magic. The different methods which ma- 
gicians employed to attain their end gave rise to various 
branches of the art, the so-called occult sciences. Some 
account of a few of these is given below. 

AEROMANCY. 

This name was given to divination through certain ap- 
pearances in the air. Besides the observation of meteors it 
included the study of the clouds, both those in process of 
formation and those that assume a variety of shapes ; for 
it was believed that the cloud-forms foretold the happy and 
unhappy aspect of the planets. It was claimed that the 
four elements were peopled with spirits called sylphs, 
nymphs, gnomes, salamanders, etc. The gnomes were de- 
mons which lodged in the earth and were always intent upon 
doing mischief. Water was the home of the nymphs, while 
fire was that of the salamanders. The sylphs, peopling the 
air, were the most beautiful and lovable creatures in the 
world. We are told that one could easily approach them, 
yet on one condition, which rendered it well-nigh impossi- 
ble — it was, to be absolutely chaste. 

ALECTRYOMANCY. 

Alectryomancy was an ancient kind of divination which 
attempted to foretell events by means of a cock, and was 
employed among the Greeks in the following manner : A 
circle was made on the ground and divided into twenty-four 
equal portions or spaces ; in each space was written one of 
the letters of the Greek alphabet, and upon each of these 
letters was laid a grain of wheat. This being done, a cock 






T&E ART OF MAGIC. 25 

was placed within a circle and careful observation was made 
of the grains he picked up. The letters corresponding to 
these grains were afterward formed into a word, which word 
was the answer decreed. It was thus that Libanius and 
Jamblichus sought who should succeed the Emperor Valens. 
They pronounced certain mysterious words, and examined 
which would be the first letters discovered by a young cock 
which they kept without food for some time. The first let- 
ter was the Greek letter Theta (6), the second the Epsilon (e), 
the third the Omicron (o), the fourth the Delta (d), and 
thereby they came to the conclusion that the name of the 
successor would begin by Theod. Upon this the Emperor 
Valens put to death several of those supposed to aspire to 
the throne and whose name commenced by Theod ; as, for 
instance, Theodestes, Theodulos, Theodoras, Theodotes, etc. 
He forgot, however, Theodosius, who succeeded him, and 
who received the epithet of the Great. 

The magicians attributed to the crowing of the cock the 
power to break up the meetings of apparitions and spectres. 
Thus, in the play of Hamlet, Horatio, speaking to his friend 
Hamlet about the ghost, says : 

" My lord, I did. 
But answer made it none : yet once, methought, 
It lifted up its head, and did address 
Itself to motion, like as it would speak : 
But, even then, the morning cock crew loud : 
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away ; 
And vanished from our sight." 

ALEUROMANCY. 

From the Greek word aleuron, meaning flour, is a sort of 



26 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

divination practised by the aid of flour. It is sometimes also 
called alphi toman cy. 

ALOMANCY. 

From the Greek als, meaning salt. This is divination by 
salt, which the ancients regarded as sacred. It is well 
known that salt was one of the most important ingredients 
in ancient Greek sacrifices ; in fact, to omit placing a salt- 
cellar near the spot where the sacrifice was to take place 
was deemed the forerunner of great misfortunes. Among 
early Christians salt was regarded as the symbol of wisdom, 
and many people still regard it as a misfortune to spill salt 
accidentally upon the table. 

ANTHROPOMANCY. 

This horrible divination was made by examining the en- 
trails of the dead. Not a few instances are recorded where 
emperors and kings have caused to be strangled numbers of 
unoffending persons in the pursuit of this nefarious prac- 
tice. 

APANTOMANCY. 

Prom the Greek apanto, to meet. It is divination by 
means of objects that one meets. Many have lived in con- 
stant fear of crows, black cats, and white hens. The Indians 
turn at once back into their houses if they meet a serpent on 
their way. In some parts of France the people fear to meet 
a rabbit, and peasants to this day believe that some misfor- 
tune will happen to them if on rising they come across a 
bare-headed woman. 

ARITHMOMANCY. 

Arithmomancy is a kind of divination or method of fore- 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 27 

telling future events by means of numbers. The Gematria, 
which constitutes the first part of the Jewish Cabala, is a 
kind of Arithmomancy. 

ASTROLOGY (JUDICIAL). 

Astrology is generally divided into natural astrology, the 
science which predicts the motions of heavenly bodies and 
eclipses of the sun and moon, and judicial astrology, which 
studies the influence of constellations on the destiny of men 
and empires. The latter has taken root so deeply in the 
human mind that neither experience, nor the falsity of its 
predictions, nor the progress of civilization have been able 
to totally extirpate it. To this day, a few may be found 
who, from a superstitious reverence for the past, or the 
spirit of contradiction, pride themselves on their adherence 
to the belief in stellar influences. Even if the said science 
were exact, it is difficult to see the advantage which would 
result to the world at large for men to know their future ; 
for they could not fight against the laws of destiny, while 
they would have a premature source of sorrow in case an 
ominou3 fate awaited them. What pleasure could such 
knowledge have brought to Socrates, Phocion, Caesar, Pom- 
pey, Charles I., Henry III., IV., Louis XVI., and many 
others, whose names are inscribed on the bloody pages of 
history ? 

According to Herodotus, a Greek historian, born about 
the year 484 B.C., the Egyptians must be considered as the 
inventors of astrology, while others claim that we must 
look to Chaldea as its birthplace. At any rate, it is difficult 
to trace its origin, and a minute discussion of the subject 
would carry us beyond the limits of the present work. M. 



28 



TEE ART OF MAGIC. 



F. Hofer, in his History of Astronomy, remarks : "If we 
wish to seek for the origin of the science, let us place a 
child or a savage in presence of the earth and the heavens, 
and ask what thoughts these suggest to him. We shall then 
obtain a clew to guide us on our path/' 

Suffice to say, that in every "part of the ancient world 
astrology had its votaries, either as a native product, or 
transplanted at some unknown time, from some unknown 
region, and amalgamated so closely with the various 
local beliefs as to lose all trace of its protoplastic condi- 
tion. 

The Chinese astrologists professed the power of produc- 
ing or averting eclipses, the Etruscan priests asserted that 
they could draw down or divert lightning. 

Among the Greeks, Chilon, the Lacedemonian, was the 
first who applied himself to the science of judicial astrol- 
ogy. He maintained that heat, humidity, cold, and dry- 
ness are the four qualities the different mixture of which 
makes the diversity of the temperament of man. Heat 
and humidity serve to generate, cold and dryness to destroy 
the body, and these four qualities are disposed in man 
according to celestial influences. The sun is the principle 
of heat, and the moon that of humidity ; and according to 
the disposition of these two great luminaries at the mo- 
ment of the birth of the child, the latter brings to the 
world the ferment of the malady which is to destroy it. 
It can easily be seen that, from the very first, judicial 
astrology, was, so to speak, a medical superstition. It did 
not, however, long confine itself to this one phase, for 
general predictions of all sorts soon became attached to it, 
and were freely made upon the authority of celestial in- 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 29 

fluences. According to the tradition of the Arabs, the sun 
presides over the brain, the heart, the marrow of the bones, 
and the right eye ; Mercury over the tongue, mouth, hands, 
legs, nerves, and imagination ; Saturn over the liver and 
right ear ; Jupiter over the navel, chest, and intestines ; 
Mars over the blood and nostrils ; Venus over the flesh ; 
the moon over all the members, but principally over the 
brain, lungs, stomach, and left eye. 

Hence the nature of every man is in direct rapport with 
the planet under which he is born. Thus, he who is born 
under the domination of the sun is beautiful, frank, gener- 
ous ; he who has been dominated by Venus is rich and fond 
of pleasure ; by Mercury, clever, intelligent, and gifted with 
an excellent memory ; by Saturn, unfortunate ; by Jupiter, 
just and famous ; by Mars, happy and valiant. Colors even 
belonged to the different planets : black to Saturn ; blue to 
Jupiter ; red to Mars ; gold to the sun ; green to Venus; 
white to the moon ; and mixed colors to Mercury. 

The horoscope of a child newly born may be predicted as 
follows : Let us suppose that it is born under the domina- 
tion of the sun. According to the astrologers, the progression 
which this planet accomplishes from the moment of the 
birth of the child forms, day by day, the principal deter- 
mination of its fortune for every year. Thus, a child being 
born at ten minutes past one in the afternoon, its genea- 
logical figure is computed upon that moment ; for it is the 
root of its life, and the general figure we are always to fol- 
low. But by computing the figure of the state in which 
the sun and all planets find themselves the following day 
at the same hour, and comparing this second figure with the 
first, we obtain the fortune of the second year of the life of 



30 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

the child. By continuing thus day by day, we can obtain 
the relation of that which will designate the figure of each 
day to each y^ar which corresponds to it. 

The ages during which astrologers were dominant, either 
by the terror they inspired, or by the martyrdom they en- 
dured when their predictions were either too true or too 
false, were the saddest in the world's history. In the times 
of Augustus, it was a common practice for men to conceal 
the day and hour of their birth, till, like Augustus, they 
found a complacent astrologer. On the subject of astrolo- 
gers there remains only to mention a few of their predictions 
remarkable, either for their fulfilment, or for the ruin and 
confusion they brought upon their authors. We begin with 
one taken from Bacon's Essay of Prophecies : "When I 
was in France, I heard from one Dr. Pena that the queen's 
mother, who was given to curious arts, caused the king her 
husband's natiyitie to be calculated under a false name, and 
the astrologer gave a judgment that he should be killed in 
a duell, at which the queene laughed, thinking her husband 
to be above challenges and duels ; but he was slaine upon a 
course at tilt, the splinters of the staff e of Montgomery go- 
ing in at his bever." 

A favorite topic of the astrologers of all countries has been 
the immediate end of the world. As early as 1186 the earth 
had escaped one threatened cataclysm of the astrologers. 
This did not prevent Stoffler from predicting a universal 
deluge for the year 1524 — a year, as it turned out, distin- 
guished for drought. His aspect of the heavens told him 
that in that year three planets would meet in the aqueous 
sign of Pisces. The prediction was believed far and wide, 
and President Aurial, at Toulouse, built himself a Noah's 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 31 

ark — a curious realization, in fact, of Chaucer's merry in- 
vention in the Miller's Tale. In China any false predic- 
tion of the astrologers was punished with death. But, as 
the Latin poet Juvenal says in his Sixth Satire, the astrolo- 
gers' chief power depends on their persecution. One of the 
most famous astrologers of the Middle Ages was Tycho 
Brahe, the astronomer roval of Denmark, who not onlv from 
his fifteenth year was devoted to astrology, but adjoining his 
observatory at Uranienburg had a laboratory built in order 
to study alchemy (the pretended art of making gold), and it 
was only a few years before his death that he finally aban- 
doned astrology. We may here notice one very remarkable 
prediction of the master of Kepler, one of the founders of 
modern astronomy. He carefully studied the comet of 
1577, and it announced, he tells us, that on the north, in 
Finland, there should be born a prince who should lay waste 
Germany, and vanish in 1632. Gustavus Adolphus, it is 
well known, was born in Finland, overran Germany, and 
died in 1632. The fulfilment of the details of this proph- 
ecy was, of course, nothing but a lucky hit, but we may con- 
vince ourselves that Tycho Brahe had some basis of reason 
for his prediction. He was no dupe of vulgar astrology, but 
gifted rather with the happy inspiration of Paracelsus, who 
saw in himself the forerunner and prototype of the scien- 
tific ascendency of Germany. Born in Denmark of a noble 
Swedish family, a politician, as were all his contemporaries 
of distinction, Tycho, though no conjurer, could foresee the 
advent of some great northern hero. Moreover, he was 
doubtless well acquainted with a very ancient tradition, that 
heroes generally came from the northern frontiers of their 
native land, where they are hardened and tempered by the 



32 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

three-fold struggles they wage with soil, climate, and bar- 
barian neighbors. 

Seeing that astrology once permeated all sciences, all re- 
ligion, and all politics, it is not strange if traces of it crop 
up where we should least expect them. To astrological poli- 
tics we owe the theory of heaven-sent rulers, instruments 
in the hands of Providence, and saviours of society. Napo- 
leon as well as Wallenstein believed in his star. Many pass- 
ages in our older poets are unintelligible without some 
knowledge of astrology. Chaucer wrote a treatise on the 
astrolabe, Milton constantly refers to planetary influences ; 
in Shakespeare's King Lear, Gloucester and Edmund repre- 
sent respectively the old and the new faith. We still con- 
template and consider ; we still speak of men as jovial , sat- 
urnine, or mercurial ; we still talk of the ascendency of 
genius, or a disastrous defeat. 

AXINOMAISTCT. 

Prom the Greek axe, a hatchet, divination by the axe. 
This instrument was placed in equilibrium upon a stake. 
Thereupon the names of suspected persons were pronounced. 
When the axe made some movement during the pronuncia- 
tion of any of these names, it was deemed a certain proof 
that the name was that of the guilty one. 

BELOMANCY. 

From the Greek helqs, an arrow. This is a method of 
divination through the instrumentality of arrows, practised 
in the Bast, but chiefly among the Arabians. Ezekiel says 
that Nebuchadnezzar used this diyination to ascertain the 
event of the war he was waging against the Jews. 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 33 

In the employment of belomancy, two distinct methods 
were in yogue. One was to mark a number of arrows, and 
to put eleyen or more of them into a bag. These were after- 
ward drawn out, and accordingly as they were marked, or 
otherwise, were future events judged. Another way was to 
have three arrows, upon one of which was written, God for- 
bids it me ; upon another, God orders it me ; and upon the 
third, nothing at all. These were put into a quiver, out of 
which one of the three was drawn at random. If it hap- 
pened to be that with the second inscription, the thing they 
consulted about was to be done ; if it chanced to be that 
with the first inscription, the thing was let alone ; and if it 
proved to be that without any inscription, they drew over 
again. Belomancy is an ancient practice, and is probably 
that which Ezekiel mentions, chap. xxi. 21 ; at least St. 
Jerome understands it so, and observes that the practice was 
frequent among the Assyrians and Babylonians. Something 
like it is also spoken of in Hosea (the first in order of the 
minor prophets), only that staves are mentioned there instead 
of arrows, which is rather rhabdomancy (from the Greek 
rhabdos, stick) than belomancy. Grotius, as well as Jerome, 
confound the two together, and show that they prevailed 
much among the Magi, Chaldeans, and Scythians, from whom 
they passed to the Sclavonians and thence to the Germans, 
who were said by Tacitus to make use of belomancy. The 
Turks to this day foretell the result of a battle in this way. 

BOTAMANCY. 

From the Greek botanon, plant, divination by plants. 
We know very little how this sort of divination was prac- 
tised, but evidently a considerable knowledge of natural 
3 



34 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

history must have been necessary, if it were based upon the 
observation of phenomena that certain plants present. 

CAPNOMANCY. 

From the Greek Kapnos, smoke. Divination by the smoke 
of sacrifices. If during a sacrifice the smoke was thin and 
light, curling itself and ascending straight up towards the 
sky, the omen was propitious ; if it scattered itself in ail 
directions, it was the contrary. Favorable conditions of 
the atmosphere were indispensable to attain the result 
wished for. 

CARTOMANCY. 

Divination by drawing cards. 

CATOPTROMANCY. 

This was another species of divination used by the an- 
cients, and was performed by means of a mirror. 

Pausanias says that this method of divination was in vogue 
among the Achaians, when those who were sick and in dan- 
ger of death let down a mirror or looking-glass, fastened 
by a thread, into a fountain before the Temple of Ceres ; 
then, looking into the glass, if they saw a ghastly, disfig- 
ured face, they took it as a sure sign of death ; but, on the 
contrary, if the face appeared fresh and healthy, it was a 
token of recovery. Sometimes glasses were used without 
water, and the images of future things, it is said, were rep- 
resented in them. 

The Egyptian hierophants, as well as the magicians of 
ancient Greece and Eome, were accustomed to astonish their 
dupes with optical illusions, visible representations of the 
divinities and subdivinities passing before the spectators in 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 35 

dark subterranean chambers. From the descriptions of an- 
cient authors we may conjecture that the principal optical 
illusion employed in these effects was the throwing of spec- 
tral images of living persons and other objects upon the 
smoke of burning incense by means of concave metal mir- 
rors. But, according to the detailed exposure of the tricks 
of the magicians, it appears that the desired effect was often 
produced in a simple way by causing the dupe to look into a 
cellar through a basin of water with a glass bottom stand- 
ing under a sky-blue ceiling, or by figures on a dark wall, 
drawn in inflammable material and suddenly ignited. 

The flashes of lightning and the rolling thunder which 
sometimes accompanied these manifestations were easy 
tricks now familiar to everybody as the ignition of lycopo- 
dium and the shaking of a sheet of metal. 

CEPHALOMANCY. 

This operation consisted in burning upon coals the head 
of a donkey. This sacrifice was made to demons, and com- 
pelled them to respond to the questions addressed to them. 

CEROMANCY. 

Wax was melted, and it was allowed to fall, drop by drop, 
into the water. The form which these "droppings" as- 
sumed indicated a propitious or unpropitious event. This 
divination is especially in vogue among the Turks. 

CHIROMANCY. 

Commonly known as palmistry. It is divination by in- 
specting the lines and configuration of the hand. Chiro- 
mancy seeks in the palm of the hand certain relations 



36 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

supposed to be closely allied with the seven planets. Ac- 
cording to the palmisters the upper part of the thumb, or 
the elevation of the hand which is at the root of the thumb, 
is under the domination of Venus ; others, however, place 
it under that of Mars. The triangle formed by the lines of 
the hand is attributed by some to Mars and by others to 
Mercury. The capital letter A, formed and figured in the 
quarter of the hand which is dominated by Jupiter is a prog- 
nostic of wealth ; in the quarter of the sun, of a great for- 
tune ; in the quarter of Mercury, of successes ; in the 
quarter of Venus, of inconstancy ; in the quarter of Mars, 
of cruelty ; in the quarter of the moon, of weakness. 

The seven first letters of the alphabet, devoted to the 
seven planets, have each their particular signification, when 
they are formed by the seven lines of the hand. But as the 
formation of letters is different in several languages the 
lines of the hand must necessarily have different meanings 
among the Arabs, Chinese, Greeks, French, English, etc. 

The little white lines that are often to be seen upon the 
nails presage, when they are numerous, that the appearances 
upon which one counts are vain. We are told that the palm- 
ister should feel neither love nor hate toward the person 
whose hand he is examining. Under this condition only 
can the result prove true. The hand examined must be 
well washed and its possessor be in a state of complete 
tranquillity, avoiding excess of heat or cold. There is also 
a dispute as to which hand should be examined. Some 
maintain that the right hand is the proper one among men, 
or those born in the day, while it is the left for women, or 
for those born in the night. Others claim the exact con- 
trary. 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 37 

In this sort of divination, not only are the lines of the 
hand observed, but also their largeness, length, color, and 
depth. The form and largeness of the hand is also consid- 
ered, as well as the shape of the fingers and nails. The 
stupidity of palmistry is evident from the fact that among 
many thousand hands not even two are to be found alike. 

CLEKOMANCY. 

This kind of divination is performed by the throwing of 
dice or little bones, and observing the points or marks 
turned up. 

At Bura, a city of Achaia, there was a celebrated Temple 
of Hercules, where such as consulted the oracle, after pray- 
ing to the idol, threw four dice, the points of which being 
well scanned by the priest, he was supposed to draw an an- 
swer from them. 

CLEDOKISM. 

This word is derived from the Greek chleson, which sig- 
nifies two things, viz., a report and a bird. In the former 
sense, cledonism should denote a kind of divination drawn 
from words occasionally uttered. Cicero observes that the 
Pythagoreans made observations not only of the words of 
the gods, but also of those of men, and accordingly believed 
the pronouncing of certain words — e. g., incendium — at a 
meal verj^unlucky. Thus, instead of prison, they employed 
the term domicilium ; and to avoid calling the Furies by 
the name Erinyes, which was supposed to be displeasing to 
them, they said Eumenides. In the second sense, Cledon- 
ism would seem to be divination drawn from birds, the 
same as ornithomancy. 



38 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

COSCISTOMAKCY, 

As the word implies, is the art of diyination by a sieve. 
The sieve being suspended, after the repetition of a cer- 
tain formula, is taken between two fingers only, and the 
names of the persons suspected repeated. He at whose 
name the sieve turns, trembles, or shakes, is reputed guilty 
of the charge in question. This doubtless must be a very 
ancient practice. Theocritus, in his Third Idyllion, men- 
tions a woman who was very skilful in it. It was sometimes 
also practised by suspending the sieve by a thread, or fixing 
it to the points of a pair of scissors, giving it room to turn, 
and naming, as before, the parties suspected. In this man- 
ner coscinomancy is still employed in some parts of Eng- 
land. From Theocritus it appears that it was not only used 
to find out culprits, but also to discover secrets, 

DACTYLOMANCY. 

This is a sort of divination performed by means of a ring. 
It was done by holding a ring, suspended by a fine thread, 
over a round table, whose edge contained a number of 
marks with the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet. The 
ring, in shaking or vibrating over the table, stopped over 
certain letters, which, being joined together, composed the 
required answer. But this operation was preceded and ac- 
companied by several superstitious ceremonies. The ring 
was to be consecrated with a great deal of mystery. The 
person holding it was to be clad in linen garments to the 
very shoes, his head was to be shaven all round, and he was 
to hold vervain in his hand. 

The whole process of this mysterious rite is given in the 
29th book of Ammianus Marcellinus. 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 39 

EXTISPICIUM. 

(From exta and spicere, to view, consider.) The name of 
the officer who examined the entrails of the victim was 
Extispex. 

This method of drawing presages relative to futurity was 
much practised throughout Greece, where there were two 
families consecrated and set apart particularly for the exer- 
cise of it. 

Among the Etruscans in Italy, likewise, the art was in 
great repute. Lucian gives us a fine description of one of 
these operations in his first book. 

GASTKOMAKCY. 

This species of divination, practised among the ancients, 
was performed by means of ventriloquism. 

There is another kind of divination called by the same 
name, which is performed by means of glasses, or other 
round transparent vessels, within which certain figures ap- 
pear by magic art. Hence its name, in consequence of the 
figures appearing as if in the interior of the vessel. 

GEOMAXCY. 

Was performed by means of a number of little points or 
dots, made at random on paper, and afterwards considering 
the various lines and figures which these points present, 
thereby pretending to form a judgment of futurity, and 
deciding-^ proposed question. 

Polydore Virgil defines geomancy as a kind of divination 
performed by means of clefts or chinks made in the ground, 
and he takes the Persian magi to have been the inventors 
of it. 



40 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

Geomancy is derived from the Greek yt), earth; and 
fAavreia, divination ; it being the ancient custom instead 
of making use of the points above mentioned to cast little 
pebbles on the ground, and thence to form the conjecture. 

HYDKOMAXCY. 

Hydromancy, or the art of divining or foretelling future 
events by means of water, is one of the four general kinds 
of divination: the other three, depending upon the other ele- 
ments, — viz, fire, air and earth — are denominated pyro- 
mancy, aeromancy, and geomancy, already mentioned. 
The Persians are said to have been the first inventors of 
hydromancy. 

There are in existence various ancient hydromatic ma- 
chines and vessels, which are of a singularly curious nature. 

OKOMANCY. 

The art of divining the good or bad fortune which will 
befall a man from the letters of his name. This mode of 
divination was in very popular repute among the ancients. 

The Pythagoreans taught that the mind, actions, and 
success of men were according to their fate, genius, and 
name ; and Plato himself inclines somewhat to the same 
opinion. 

Thus Hippolytus (from the Greek hippos, horse) was ob- 
served to be torn to pieces by his own chariot horses, as his 
name imported ; and Agamemnon signified that he should 
linger long before Troy ; Priam that he should be redeemed 
from bondage in his childhood. To this also may be re- 
ferred the lines of Claudius Eutilius: 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 41 

"Nominibus certis credam decurrere mores ? 
Moribus et potius nomina certa dari ? " 

It is a frequent and just observation in history, that the 
greatest empires and states have been founded and destroyed 
by men of the same name. Thus, for instance, Cyrus, the 
son of Cam byses, founded the Persian monarchy, and Cyrus, 
the son of Darius, ruined it ; Darius, son of Hystaspes, re- 
stored it ; and, again, Darius, son of Asamis, utterly over- 
threw it. Philip, son of Amyntas, exceedingly enlarged 
the kingdom of Macedonia ; and Philip, son of Antigonus, 
wholly lost it. Augustus was the first emperor of Rome, 
Angustulus the last. Constantine first settled the empire at 
Constantinople, to which city he gave his name, and another 
Constantine lost it wholly to the Turks. 

There is a somewhat similar observation that some 
names are constantly unfortunate to princes — e.g., Caius 
among the Eomans : John in France, England and Scot- 
land ; and Henry in France. One of the principal rules of 
onomancy, among the Pythagoreans, was, that an even 
number of vowels in a name signified an imperfection in the 
left side of a man, and an odd number in the ri^ht. 
Another rule, about as valuable as this, was that those per- 
sons were the most happy in whose names the numeral let- 
ters, added together, made the greatest sums ; for this rea- 
son, said they, Achilles vanquished Hector, the numeral 
letters in the former name surpassing in number those in 
the latter. And, doubtless, it was from a like principle 
that the Roman fops toasted their mistresses at their meet- 
ings as often as their names contained letters. 

" Nalvia sex cyathis, septem Justina libatur." 



42 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

Ehodingius describes a singular kind of onomancy. 
Theodotus, King of the Goths, being curious to learn the 
issue of his wars against the Komans, an onomantical Jew 
ordered him to shut up a number of swine in small styes, 
and to give to some of them Koman, and to others Gothic 
names, with different marks to distinguish them, and there 
to keep them till a certain day. When the appointed day 
came, upon inspecting tlie styes, it was found that those to 
which the Gothic names had been given were dead, and 
those which had the Eoman names were alive ; upon which 
the Jew foretold the defeat of the Goths. 

OSTEJKOCEITICS. 

The art of interpreting dreams, or a method of foretelling 
future events by means of dreams. 

This species of divination dates back to the earliest 
times. The Scriptures furnish sundry examples of celestial 
communications given to men in their dreams, as for in- 
stance the explication given to Pharaoh by Joseph. It was 
believed that to dream loss of teeth presaged some calamity 
or the death of a relative. To dream of black cats or white 
hens was also considered a bad omen. 

To dream loss of sight foretold the loss of one's children. 
If one dreamed of the loss of one's head, arms, or feet, it 
was the loss of one's father, brothers, or domestics. 

To dream that one had hair fine and well curled was a 
sign of prosperity. If, on the other hand, the hair seemed 
to be neglected or scant, it was a sign of affliction. 

To dream of garlands of flowers in their season was a 
happy omen ; but if the flowers were out of season the 
dream was a presage of ill. 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 43 

To dream of death foretold marriage. 

To dream that one finds a treasure was considered as 
foreboding death and sorrow. 

To dream of looking into a mirror, if single, or to dream 
of some sorrowful event, foretold some good fortune about 
to occur. 

ONYCHOMANCY. 

This kind of divination is performed by means of the 
finger-nails. The ancient practice was to rub the nails of 
a youth with oil and soot or wax, and to hold up the nails 
thus prepared against the sun, upon which there was sup- 
posed to appear figures or characters which showed the 
thing required. Hence, also, modern chiromancers called 
that branch of their art which relates to the inspection of 
nails onychomancy. 

ORNITHOMANCY 

Is a kind of divination, or method of arriving at the 
knowledge of futurity, by means of birds ; it was among the 
Greeks what augury was among the Romans. 

PYROMANCY. 

A species of divination performed by means of fire. 

The ancients imagined they could foretell futurity by in- 
specting fire and flames. For this purpose they considered 
its direction, or which way it turned. Sometimes they 
threw pitch into it, and if it took fire instantly they con- 
sidered it a favorable omen. 

PSYCHOMANCY, OR SCIOMAKCY. 

An art among the ancients of raising or calling up the 



44 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

spirits or souls of deceased persons to give intelligence of 
things to come. The witch who conjured up the soul of 
Samuel, to foretell Saul the event of the impending battle* 
did so by sciomancy. 

EHABDOMAKCY 

Was an ancient method of divination performed by means 
of rods or staves. In fact, this sort of divination dates 
from time immemorial. St. Jerome mentions it in his 
commentary on Hosea, where the prophet says : " I?i the 
name of God, my people ask counsel at their stocks, and 
their staff declareth unto them; " which passage that saint 
"understands to allude to rhabdomancy. The same is met 
with again in Ezekiel, where the prophet says : " For the 
King of Babylon stood at the parting of the way," at the 
head of the two ways, to use divination : "he made his 
arrow bright," or, as St. Jerome renders it, he mixed his 
arrows ; he consulted with images ; he looked in the river. 
If it be the same kind of divination that is alluded to in 
these two passages, rhabdomancy must be a superstition 
similar to belomancy. These two, in fact, are generally 
confounded. So much, however, is certain, that the instru- 
ments of divination mentioned by Hosea are different from 
those of Ezekiel, though it is possible they might use rods 
or arrows, indifferently ; or the military men might use 
arrows, and the rest rods. The women cut the rods very 
straight by means of secret enchantments, and during cer- 
tain periods of time, designated very minutely by means of 
these rods, predicted the future. 

SIBYLS. 

The existence of sibyls dates back to the earliest antiquity. 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 45 

The Greeks gave this name to all women supposed to be in- 
spired with a prophetic spirit. Becker says that they were 
women more learned than the rest, that exercised the func- 
tions of priestesses. 

It was a sibyl who brought to Tarquin the nine books of 
sibylline laws, for which she asked so high a price that the 
king thought her mad. The sibyl threw three of the books 
into the fire, and asked the same price for the remaining 
six. Tarquin, still refusing, she burned three more and 
demanded the same price for the last three. The king, 
surprised at this, consulted the augurs, who advised him to 
buy the books at the price asked. He did so, and appointed 
two patricians to keep these precious books, which were 
consulted during great calamities or by decree of the senate. 

THE GENII. 

The ancients gave the name of genius (plural genii), to 
good or evil spirits, supposed to preside over every person, 
place, and thing, and especially to rule over a man's destiny 
from his birth. 

In Oriental tales genii are constantly mentioned and seem 
to constitute a family as numerous as it is multifarious. 

THE WAIFS OF THE MOUNTAINS. 

The ancient chronicles of nearly all nations, particularly 
of those of the north, record marvellous stories of a class of 
waifs, living in the mountains, whose occupation was to 
forge enchanted arms. They can be either spirits of good or 
of evil to man. They are invisible, and one should take great 
care not to provoke them. The mountaineers never speak 
of them but with the greatest possible respect. We give 



46 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

below a description of one of these fantastic beings drawn 
from the popular beliefs in vogue in Spain. 

THE LADY WITH THE FOOT OF A STAG. 

The Spanish chroniclers mention that Don Diego Lopez 
de Haro, being one day on the track of a stag, heard on a 
sudden out in the mountains a delicious voice. He turned 
and saw a most beautiful woman, richly clad, upon the top 
of a mountain. Don Diego thereupon fell desperately in love 
and promised to marry her. " Beautiful cavalier/' said the 
lady, Ci I accept, but upon one condition: swear to me 
never to utter a sacred word." The cavalier readily assented. 
After his marriage he noticed that his wife had a foot like 
that of a stag, yet this in no wise diminished his love for 
her. Two children were born by her, a son and a daughter. 
One day when they were seated at the table Don Diego 
threw a bone to one of his dogs — he had two, a large bull 
dog and a terrier — whereupon the dogs began fighting, 
and the bull dog seized the latter by the neck and strangled 
him. " Holy Virgin ! " cried out Don Diego, " who ever 
saw such a thing ?" Hardly were the words pronounced 
when the lady with the foot of a stag grasped the hands of 
her children. Don Diego kept the boy, but the mother fled 
with the girl. Some time afterward Don Diego was made 
prisoner by the Moors and conducted to Toledo. His son 
was sorely grieved at the captivity of his father and betook 
himself to the mountain where his mother lived. The 
" Spirit " w T as upon the rock, but she recognized and called 
her son by name. " I know," she said, " what brings you 
here. Take this extraordinary charger, called Paraldo ; in 
a few hours you will be in Toledo, where I promise you help 



THE ART OF MAGIC, 47 

and protection." Inigues (such was the name of the young 
man) mounted the horse and, with the powerful aid of his 
mother, brought back his father in safety. She persisted, 
however, in living upon the rock, for the legend tells us 
that she was " a devil," and as such she would never forgive 
the words uttered by her husband. 

GHOSTS. 

The fabulous stories told to our day concerning spirits 
and ghosts are well known. This belief was formerly so 
general that one would have passed for a visionary had he 
doubted it. There is not a village or hamlet or castle in 
France which failed to give rise to some story of a ghost or 
apparition, which a succession of traditions has brought 
down to our day. Notwithstanding the fact that progress 
and civilization have disabused men's minds of this belief, 
there are still countries where people are imbued with this 
superstition, especially so in the more remote rural districts. 
Perhaps of all people the negroes are most heavily fettered 
with the shackles of superstition. The two instances fol- 
lowing are to the point : 

A Conjuking-stone (From the Macon (Ga.) Tele- 
graph, July 19 5 1887). — "A queer case came up before 
Justice Freeman yesterday. Jane Blanch. has a husband 
who has a fondness for staying away from home, and Jane 
has been greatly worried about it. Some time ago, while 
narrating her troubles to one Martha Montague, late of Co- 
lumbus, Martha said her husband had a peculiar stone that 
had for its charm the power of bringing back husbands, 
and in fact of performing a number of miraculous things. 
Negroes believe in conjuring bags, rabbit feet, etc., and 



48 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

Jane said she wanted a piece of the stone no matter what it 
cost. Martha saw her husband Tom, and after some per- 
suasion they agreed to let Jane have a piece of it for $5. 
Jane paid the money and waited for the wonderful stone 
which was so slow in getting into her hands that she sued 
out warrants for both Tom and Martha, and they appeared 
before Justice Freeman yesterday with the stone they in- 
tended giving Jane. The court compelled Tom to refund 
the money. The stone is a piece of magnetic iron ore, and 
the trial developed the fact that it is generally kept in drug 
stores and sold at the rate of seventy cents a pound. Ne- 
groes purchase it because they believe that it will " con- 
jure " people. 

He Obeyed the Voodoo. — (From the New York Times, 
July 24, 1887). — "A policeman passing through West 
Eighteenth Street yesterday morning saw a roughly-clad, 
barefooted, and very black negro haul a dead cat out of the 
gutter, drag off one of the legs by putting his foot on it, 
and proceed to eat it. The man said he was Charles Eider, 
a farm hand, from Delaware, who arrived here in search of 
employment on Friday. His wife died twelve years ago and 
her spirit haunted him constantly. Voodoo experts had 
told him that nothing but human flesh or that of a live cat 
would lay the restless spirit. Failing to get either, he 
thought he would try what a dead cat could do. 

"Justice Gorman committed him as insane." 

SATA^, DEMONS. 

The Satan of the legends is distinct from the Lucifer of 
theology. The former is never clothed with any vestige 
of his celestial origin ; he is the Devil, the enemy of man, 



TEE ART OF MAGIC. 49 

wicked by the very essence, as it were, of his perverted na- 
ture. His rage is often powerless, excepting when he has 
recourse to ruse, and he inspires fear much oftener than ter- 
ror. The part assigned to Satan was as poetic as it was 
dramatic, as it is manifest in the old religious works and 
The Lives of the Saints. It is he who is at the bottom 
of every intrigue ; it is he who puts the action into motion. 
His horns, his tail, his nails, his eyes of fire, his subtle 
wickedness vary but little in appearance from biblical tra- 
dition. It is thus that Satan is painted to us, not only by 
the biographers of the middle ages, but by Pope Gregory 
himself in his life of Saint Benoit. One day when the lat- 
ter saint went to offer his prayers in the Oratory of Saint 
John, on Mount Cassin, he met the Devil under the form of 
a veterinary surgeon, with a bottle in one hand and a halter 
in the other. Satan spoke with civility to Saint Benoit and 
told him that he was about to administer a purgative to the 
two-footed animals, the fathers of the monastery. It is use- 
less to add that Saint Benoit would not permit the infernal 
doctor to purge too violently the poor monks ; and finally, 
we are gravely informed that Saint Benoit's piety overcame 
Satan's perversity. 

Among the numberless episodes in the history of the 
Devil, as mentioned in The Lives of the Saints, some are 
truly comical, others exceedingly picturesque. St. An- 
tony once saw Satan raise his giant head above the clouds 
and stretch forth his mighty hands to intercept the souls 
of the dead which were flying towards heaven. Sometimes 
the Devil is represented as a veritable monkey, and his 
malice amounts only to grotesque drolleries. It was under 
the guise of a monkey that the Devil sought to deceive 
4 



50 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

St. Gudule. All his ruses having failed, he had recourse 
"to a last effort" The virgin was in the habit, at the 
crowing of the cock, of going to the church to pray, ac- 
companied by her servant, who carried a lamp. Now, what 
did the father of malice do ? He put out the lantern by 
blowing under it, but the saint invoked God to her aid, and 
we are gravely informed it was at once relighted, whereupon 
the evil one ran off with downcast head. On the other hand, 
there are many instances in which the Devil is deceived by 
the simplest possible artifices. His innocence is depicted in 
touching colors. He is then represented as rather a good 
sort of devil. 

THE DEVIL AMOKG THE JAPANESE. 

Matzurie is the name of the principal feast celebrated at 
Nagasaki, and the devils play in it the principal part. Sev- 
eral among them are provided with the biblical horns, 
and wear a frightful mask, rush about the streets and create 
a frightful noise, dancing and beating upon a drum. These 
devils are of different colors. There are white, black, red 
and green devils. It is well known that the whites paint 
the devil in black, and the negroes in white ; but as to the 
red and the green, they belong exclusively to the Japanese. 
The Japanese say that one day the quarrel about the color 
of the devil was getting so bitter that it threatened to run 
into a civil war. In order to avoid this the question was 
submitted to the spiritual Emperor, the Son of Heaven, who 
declared that everybody was in the right, and that really 
there existed devils of all colors. Henceforth, the Japanese 
devils adopted the four colors — Mack, ivhite, red and 
green. 



TEE ART OF MAGIC. 51 

PUCK. 

Puck is a little imp who had his domicile among the Do- 
minicans (a religious order of St. Dominique), at Scheverin. 
Notwithstanding the tricks which he played upon strangers, 
he was often very useful to them. Under the form of a 
monkey, he turned the gridiron, drew the corks off the wine- 
bottles, swept the kitchen, etc. We find him in England in 
the form of Eobin Goodfellow. Puck in Sweden is called 
Wissegodreng or Wisse, the good fellow. He lives on good 
terms with Tomtegobie, or the Old Nick of the farm-houses, 
who is a devil much of the same sort. In Denmark, Puck 
possesses rare talent as a musician. 

THE VOODOO KELIGION. 

In 1459 there arose in the city of Arras, a fortified city 
of France, chief town of Pas de Calais and formerly capital 
of the province of Artois, a sect which professed to follow a 
religion to which the name of Voodoo was given. This 
sect, composed of persons of both sexes, assembled during 
the night, and by the authority of Satan, in some out-of-the- 
way solitary spot in the depth of a forest or desert. There 
the devil made his appearance under the human form, 
although his face was never perfectly visible to those as- 
sembled. He then explained to them his wishes, the man- 
ner in which he desired to be obeyed, and distributed to 
each a little money and a large amount of supplies. The 
meeting wound up with a general scene of debauchery. 
Such acts caused the arrest " through direct accusation " of 
several respectable and innocent persons, who were forced to 
undergo severe tortures, so much so that several, overcome 



52 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

by the excruciating torments they suffered, acknowledged 
that they were guilty of "Voodoo." They furthermore 
averred that during these nocturnal assemblies they there 
saw and recognized many persons of high rank, such as 
prelates, lords, governors, etc. , names in fact suggested by 
those examining them, and even forced upon the victims 
through torture. Several of those thus accused were burned ; 
others saved themselves by means of their gold. All these 
accusations sprang from a sentiment of vengeance, or were 
plots of a few men without honor, influenced by cupidity, 
through groundless accusations, to put to death after ex- 
torted confessions some wealthy people. In order to attaint 
more surely their victims, the crime of heresy was often 
mingled with that of magic. History furnishes us many ex- 
amples of unheard-of cruelty in connection with the Voodoo 
religion. 

SORCERERS CONVICTED OP MAGIC THROUGH THE TRIAL 
OF COLD WATER. 

During the times of ignorance and superstition, various 
methods were invented to convict the so-called sorcerers of 
the crime of magic. Among these methods the trials of 
warm, water, litter water and cold water were prominent. 
The latter was the one most commonly used. The sorcerer 
was divested of his clothes, the right wrist was tied to his 
left heel, and the left wrist to the right heel. A rope was 
then wound round his body and the victim was thrown thus 
bound into deep water three times. If he sunk to the bot- 
tom it was taken as a proof of his innocence ; if on the con- 
trary he did not sink it was proof of his culpability. Of 
course, nothing could be more absurd than this pretended 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 53 

proof, because if it was through magic that the victim did 
not sink, it must be confessed that no worse moment could 
be found to exercise his art. By preserving himself from 
being drowned he gave against himself a proof of his pre- 
tended crime, which would infallibly conduct him to the 
stake. The pontiffs opposed themselves to this culpable su- 
perstition, and finally Pope Innocent IV. abolished it. We 
record some instances of these cruel practices. 

SORCERY PROVED BY WATER. 

Beauvalet, a well-known lawyer of Dinteville, in Cham- 
pagne, filled for a certain time the judicial chair in the ab- 
sence of the judge. Some one told him that a certain 
Sebantian Breton and Jenny Simoni, his wife, inhabitants of 
Dinteville, were sorcerers. Thereupon the two supposed 
magicians were seized "upon direct information and accu- 
sation," and thrown into prison. 

During the examination they declared that they did not 
understand what was asked of them, and denied every- 
thing imputed to them. The woman, above all, declared 
that she recognized only one God for master, maintained 
that she never was present in an assembly of sorcerers, and 
that neither she nor her husband had ever poisoned men 
or animals. 

The acting judge ordered that both husband and wife 
should be shaved " throughout the entire body," be con- 
ducted to the river at a depth of sufficient water, be there 
plunged, to the end that sorcery may be proved against 
them, and this in accordance with the existing laws. 

The decree drawn up on the 15th of June, 1594, read as 
follows : 



54 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

" Judgment has been pronounced against Jenny Simoni, 
and she is sentenced to be shaved and bathed ; to be con- 
ducted to the banks of the river, followed by the judge, her 
'parish priest and the inhabitants of Dinteville and the sur- 
rounding districts." 

Eight upon the banks of the river Jenny Simoni again de- 
clared that she was a respectable woman, innocent of sor- 
cery, and not knowing what magic meant. She was, 
however, divested of her clothing, and by order of the judge 
both her feet and hands were bound and she was thrown into 
the river at a spot where the water was from seven to eight 
feet deep. Three different times she was plunged into the 
water, and as many times she came upon the surface with- 
out stirring. She did not seem to have swallowed a drop of 
water. 

Both husband and wife were examined anew, and the 
woman persisted always in what she already had declared. 
Upon her knees she prayed to God, to Jesus Christ and the 
Holy Virgin to make her innocence manifest, and declared 
in a loud voice that those who had deposed against her were 
perjured and unfaithful to God. 

The judge now wished to know whether she was marked 
on any part of her body as a sorceress was supposed to be, 
and thereupon ordered that she be divested of all her cloth- 
ing, and be examined, that it might be ascertained whether 
she bore any magic marks. Four women were appointed 
to make the necessary examination. 

They upon oath declared that they saw and visited the 
said Simoni despoiled of her garments ; that they discov- 
ered a small scar on the body, under the left shoulder, and 
in the form of a V ; a little below it a small, white, round 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 55 

mark ; at the perinee another scar was found as of a wound 
sewn, which she declared to have been inflicted upon her by 
the horns of an ox, which struck her when she was a child ; 
and as to the mark under the shoulder, she said that it was 
a birth-mark. 

The judge found, in the above description, the palpable 
proof that poor Simoni was a sorceress, and by a formal de- 
cree, bearing date July 7, 1594, she was declared " guilty 
of the crime of sorcery and accordingly condemned to be 
hanged and strangled, her body burned and reduced to 
ashes, and her goods confiscated ; her husband to pay a 
heavy fine, to be banished for ten years, and his goods also 
confiscated. " 

Sorrow and the torments of the suffering imposed upon 
the poor woman brought death to her ere the judgment was 
executed. But not even death freed her from the penalty 
of the law, which was read to the body and the latter deliv- 
ered to the executioner, who brought it to the Square of 
Diriteville, the rope around the neck, bound it to the stake 
and then set it on fire. The execution was carried out in 
the presence of all the notaries and dignitaries of Dinteville 
including the parish priest. 

TRIAL BY WARM WATER. 

The trial by warm water was preceded by the same cere- 
monies as that with cold, after which a stone was thrown 
into a caldron of boiling water, which the accused was to 
take out at once, his hand and arm being bare. The trial 
with the hot iron consisted in causing the accused to touch 
a burning iron with the naked hand. After these trials 
they bound the hand, over which they placed a bag which 



•56 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

the judge sealed with the court's seal. If, three days after- 
wards, there appeared no sign of the burning, the accused 
was declared innocent. 

TEIAL BY BITTER WATER. 

The accused, before undergoing this trial, was brought 
before the priests, when, after the usual maledictions were 
pronounced in a loud yoice, the yictim was forced to swal- 
low, in their presence, the beverage which was called Mtter 
water. If innocent, no pain whatever was experienced ; 
but if guilty, death ensued, amid the most excruciating 
suffering. Who does not see in this a terrible means of get- 
ting rid of an enemy, a competitor or a rival ? 

TRIAL BY FIRE. 

This method of trial seems so dangerous that one is 
tempted to think that those subjected to it must have pos- 
sessed some chemical substance to protect them against the 
action of heat. The following story will give an idea of the 
manner in which the trial was made : Emma, mother of Ed- 
ward III., was accused of improper relations with the Bishop 
of Winchester, whereat the credulous and superstitious 
king wished that she should be justified by the trial of fire. 
It was decided that she would walk nine steps barefooted 
over nine red-hot pieces of iron, and then take five more 
steps " for the Bishop of Winchester." She consented to 
the trial and spent the night in prayer. At daybreak the 
usual ceremonies took place, and then, in the presence of 
the king and all the dignitaries of the kingdom, the queen 
walked between two bishops over the red-hot pieces of iron. 
The fire caused her so little pain that she asked how long it 






THE ART OF MAGIC. 57 

would be before she came to where the red-hot irons were. 
Thereupon the king knelt before his mother and asked that 
the bishops impose upon him the necessary penalty for the 
doubts he had entertained against his mother. His wish 
was granted. 

THE DISCOVERER OF SORCERERS. 

Hopkins was the name of the man who discovered more 
than a hundred sorcerers, and even extracted confessions 
from his victims. His usual plan of discovering them was 
to strip the clothing from the one accused, in order to find 
the mark which the devil was supposed to place upon the 
sorcerer. To this end he tortured his victim by sticking 
pins into several parts of the body. It was allowed him by 
law to exercise this odious profession in England. His pay 
was twenty shillings for each town where he went, not in- 
cluding his traveling and other expenses, for which he asked 
additional pay. This monster asserts that he never went 
anywhere unless asked. Such rascals have really existed, 
to the shame of human kind. Finally, popular indignation 
burst forth with such force against Hopkins that, being 
seized and submitted to the trial of water, to which he had 
himself had recourse in the case of others, it happened that 
he floated instead of sinking. Thereupon he was convicted 
of magic and the world was speedily freed from the monster. 

-=_ MAGIC LOVE-CHARM. 

The following practice was at one time in vogue in Ger- 
many : A hair taken from the head of the girl was placed 
on retiring over one's clothes ; then a general confession was 
made, during which the hair was worn by the love-sick 



58 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

Borneo around Iris neck; a taper was lighted which had 
been previously blessed during the last gospel, and- the fol- 
lowing formula was said : " Oh, taper, I conjure thee by 
the virtue of God, the all-powerful, by the nine choirs of 
the angels, by the guardian virtue, bring to me that girl 
in flesh and bones, that I may be happy with her/' 

HOW THE BKAHMINS IN INDIA PROTECT THEMSELVES 

AGAINST ENEMIES. 

The Brahmins were, and to this day are, the most influen- 
tial and wisest men in India. They were not merely the 
depositaries of the sacred books, the philosophy, the science, 
and the laws of the ancient Hindu commonwealth : they 
were also the creators and custodians of its sacred literature. 
They had a practical monopoly of Vedic learning, and their 
policy was to trace back every branch of knowledge and 
intellectual effort to the Vedas. For twenty-two centuries 
they have been the counsellors of Hindu princes and the 
teachers of the Hindu people. Yet these wise teachers were 
not free from the influence of magic art, for we are told 
that in a sort of cabalistic way they wrote the following 
numbers : 28, 35, 2, 7 — 6, 3, 32, 31—34, 29, 8, 1 —4, 5, 
30, 33 — in each of the four divisions of a square. Beneath 
they wrote the name of their enemy. Now, it is claimed by 
these learned sons of India that if you wear this talisman 
about you, your enemy will be utterly powerless to do you 
harm. 

THE MEETING-PLACE OF DEVILS. 

It can scarcely be conceived how readily, in the times of 
ignorance, accusations of magic were listened to, and with 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 59 

how great apathy and easy persuasion death was decreed 
against the so-called magicians. A simple shepherd or 
goatherd relates, for instance, after supper to his wife or 
children an adventure at the meeting-place of deyils ; and 
being himself, in truth, persuaded that he has been there, 
and his imagination to some extent heated by the vapors of 
wine, he does not fail to speak in strong and lively language 
concerning incidents which he never saw. His family listen 
with awe to his talk about a subject so frightful. It fol- 
lows that the impressible imaginations of his wife and chil- 
dren are thereby deeply affected. It is the husband, the 
father, who speaks of things he has seen, in which he has 
taken part ; why then should they not believe him? Finally 
they become accustomed to his stories. Curiosity urges them 
to attend the said meetings. They continually think of 
what they heard so weirdly described. Their own imagina- 
tion is in turn aroused and sleep presents to them all the 
scenes which the master depicted to them. They rise, they 
question each other and repeat what they saw, and each and 
every one is persuaded that it was not a dream, but that they 
were really present at the frightful meeting. It results 
that they are taken for sorcerers, they are seized, questioned, 
and rarely escape death. It was believed that the sor- 
cerers were called to the meeting-place of devils by a cornet 
sounded by the arch-devil himself; it was heard by all 
sorcerers scattered all over the universe, without however 
being audible to the ears of any other person. When the 
prince of sorcerers traverses the air in order to attend the 
meeting, every sorcerer who accosts him salutes him with 
becoming respect, and he returns the salutation. There is 
also a princess of sorcerers who appears to the eyes of the sub- 



60 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

altern magicians, with a black visage, red-hot eyes, a thick, 
large nose, and a mouth of enormous size always open, 
always exhaling smoke. In the estimation, however, of the 
prince of sorcerers, and those of high rank, she is of ravish- 
ing beauty. The main object of the meetings of the devils 
is to spin malignant arts ; the sorcerers share in this work 
with the devil. Festivals take place, but the peculiarity of 
the feast consists in the fact that one is never "satiated" 
with the food served. Knives, salt and oil are rigorously 
excluded from that table. The knives might form the 
figure of the. cross, for which the devils hold the greatest 
possible antipathy. Salt is the symbol of wisdom, and oil 
enters into the mysteries of religion. However, all the 
ceremonies of religion are imitated and turned into ridicule 
during these meetings. The torches used are made of 
wax and sulphur, and constantly emit a low, hissing 
noise. Volumes could be written in detailing minutely the 
various mysteries related by the ancients respecting these 
meetings, but the above may give the reader an idea of their 
general nature. A writer of the eighteenth century relates 
that when people began to believe that the souls of the dead 
came and visited the living, and presented themselves to the 
latter under visible forms, they taught the living that a 
peculiar phrase or password, pronounced with certain for- 
malities, would cause the souls of the departed to appear 
before those who wished to speak with them. If they failed 
to come, it was owing to the fact that the one invoking at- 
tached too much importance to the present life instead of to 
the spiritual ! 

As it has been already stated, every people upon the face 
of the earth had its magicians. The most distinguished 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 61 

were usually in the pay of the State. They foretold the 
future in various ways, perhaps more frequently by ex- 
amining the heart and liver of an ox. Nothing could be 
more absurd than to suppose that because a magician 
was sometimes condemned to be burned alive, the people 
had no faith in the art of magic. The people claimed 
and believed that those condemned to be burned were thus 
punished because they were not true, but false magicians, 
laying claim to a heaven-sprung art which they not in the 
least possessed. Just as society to-day condemns to the full 
extent of the law those circulating spurious coin, in like 
manner ancient society claimed to punish the spurious magi- 
cians. 

PERSONS POSSESSED OF THE DEVIL. 

During the night of Friday of the Holy Week the follow- 
ing scene was enacted in the Eomish churches, and we re- 
gret to say that to this very day it takes place in many a 
Catholic Church. 

All those supposed to be possessed of the devil — it was 
seriously believed that the devil in some way had taken up 
his abode within the body of certain unfortunate beings — 
betook themselves on the eve of Good Friday to church, in 
order to free themselves from the dominion of the wicked 
spirit. Then those thus afflicted made a thousand different 
hideous contortions, uttering cries and howls not unlike those 
of a dog. _Soon the priest appeared bearing the true wood 
out of which the original cross tvas made. Every Catholic 
place of worship during the middle ages claimed to possess 
that precious wood. On the appearance of the cross the con- 
vulsions and contortions ceased, and to the accents of rage 
and despair a perfect calm succeeded. There were, how- 



62 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

ever, even during those times of ignorance and superstition, 
a few doubters who believed that those thus possessed were 
beggars, duly paid to play the above r61e and that, the 
priest offered the spectacle of these pretended miraculous 
cures in order to eradicate any public incredulity and reani- 
mate the belief of the faithful in the only true and original 
cross. The following historical fact is to the point. 

THE STOEY OF MAETHA BEOSSIEE. 

Jacques Brossier, a weaver of Romorantin, a man of small 
means, formed the plan of turning into profit public credu- 
lity by causing his daughter Martha to pass for a demoniac. 
Having exercised her in" making contortions and grimaces, 
in assuming extraordinary postures and uttering piercing 
cries, he had her make her debut, as it were, in the surround- 
ing cities and then in Anjou, whither her imposition was 
unmasked by Bishop Charles Miron, in the following man- 
ner : It is said that the good bishop, having invited her 
to his table, had her drink of blessed water without fore- 
warning her, and that she manifested not the slightest con- 
sequence therefrom 

He poured common water into her glass, telling her that it 
was blessed, whereupon she fell into great agitation and had 
extraordinary convulsions. 

He asked in a loud voice that the ritual of exorcisms be 
brought to him, but instead he took a copy of Virgil and 
read a few verses from the iEneid. The girl, thinking that 
he was pronouncing from the ritual, forthwith appeared 
tormented by the devil, and made horrible contortions. 

The prelate, after a severe reprimand, ordered her to re- 
turn to her native place and no longer abuse the public. 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 63 

Instead of submitting to the order of the wise prelate, the 
alleged demoniac, her father, Jacques Brossier, and her two 
sisters wended their w~ay towards a theatre, a place more 
favorable for their impostures. They came to Paris, and 
towards the end of March, 1599, lodged near the nunnery of 
Sainte-Genevieve. 

When the news of the arrival of the party became known, 
the Capuchins were the first to enter the arena for the pur- 
pose of fighting the devil with which Martha Brossier was 
possessed. In the excess of their zeal, they neglected the 
ordinary formalities, and began to exorcise the girl without 
the authorization of their superiors. 

Cardinal Gondi, Bishop of Paris, proceeded in this affair 
with more regularity, and employed the proper means to 
enlighten himself respecting his position as to the alleged 
demoniac. He called together several doctors in theology 
and several doctors in medicine. Among the latter were the 
most famous physicians in Paris. 

On the 30th of March, 1599, this anxiously awaited scene 
opened with solemnity and the girl played her part admir- 
ably, assuming indescribable positions and uttering truly 
satanical cries. 

There was then a principle generally admitted to the 
effect that the devil knew all languages, both ancient and 
modern. To this end, and in order to assure themselves of 
the presence of the malevolent spirit in the body of the 
young girl, 15r. Marius interrogated her in Greek, and Dr. 
Marescot in Latin. The devil remained mute, and hence it 
was decided that the girl was not in the least possessed. 

The above decision did not at all suit several of the 
priests interested in proving the presence of the devil, and 



64 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

in demonstrating their own power oyer this invisible and 
malignant spirit. 

On the day following a new scene was enacted. It took 
place in a chapel of Sainte-Genevi&ve. Martha Brossier, 
after a thorough rehearsal, renewed her convulsions and her 
mysterious tricks. Two physicians, it is alleged, stuck into 
her a needle between the thumb and index. She did not 
manifest the slightest pain. The truth, however, of " the 
needle " is doubted by contemporary writers. 

On the 1st of April Martha was submitted to new experi- 
ments. A Capuchin opened the seance by repeating the 
exorcism, and when he reached these words " et homo f actus 
est," this wonderful girl drew forth her tongue, made hor- 
rible contortions and dragged herself from the altar to the 
door of the chapel with a celerity which astonished those 
present. 

Thereupon the exorcising Capuchin said, with a tone of 
assurance : (i If anybody doubts the presence of the demon in 
the body of this girl, and does not fear to expose his life, let 
him try to restrain and stop this demon" 

Hardly were the words uttered, when Doctor Marescot 
rose, approached Martha, seized her by the head, and re- 
strained all her movements. 

The exorciser, confounded, said that the devil had now 
withdrawn. The physician replied: i( It is I, then, ivho 
have chased the devil away." 

After the above scene, Marescot left the chapel for an in- 
stant and Martha, believing him far away, fell again into 
her usual convulsions. Marescot entered at once, seized 
her, and without much effort succeeded in rendering her 
motionless. The exorciser, thereupon, ordered the girl to get 



THE ART OF MAGIC, 65 

up, but she could not do it, and the doctor who held her 
replied : " This devil has no feet and cannot stand upP 

The result of this experiment much chagrined the parti- 
sans of the devil, but did not discourage them. They re- 
peated once more the spectacle of possession, but refused to 
allow the former physicians to be present. They called new 
ones, who being far more tractable and docile than the 
former, declared before the Bishop of Paris that Martha 
undoubtedly had the devil in her body. 

Folly, however, did not triumph, and this ridiculous farce, 
which drew together many people and became a general sub- 
ject of conversation, finally attracted the attention of the 
government. On the 2d of April the attorney-general said 
before the court. "A few days ago there arrived in this 
city a girl who they say is possessed of the wicked spirit ; 
at the church of Sainte-Genevieve she has been seen and 
visited by physicians and other persons who are well assured 
of the imposition practised, wherefrom much evil ensues." 

The court, therefore, decided that the girl be turned over 
to the custody of the police until her trial should take place. 

The Bishop of Paris at once went and declared to the 
attorney-general that not later than the day before he had 
believed that the possession of Martha Brossier was a fla- 
grant act of imposition ; but he had since changed his mind, 
and begged for a delay of two or three days ere the decree of 
arrest was issued. The said magistrate did apply for a 
stay of proceedings, but the court refused to grant any 
delay. 

Martha Brossier, in spite of her devil, was cast into prison, 
and a commission was appointed to examine the girl and 
make a formal report. 
5 



66 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

The majority of the priests were now up in arms and 
greatly resented this interference in a matter which they 
claimed belonged virtually to the Church. Henry IV. em- 
ployed all the means which prudence suggested to maintain 
the peace of his kingdom, and avert the threatened proceed- 
ings of the priests. He had much difficulty in reducing his 
subjects to submission ; to such extent is ecclesiastical 
power dangerous when sustained by public credulity. 

Soon the pulpits resounded with bitter and loud com- 
plaints against the government. "It was not," said they, 
" the prerogative of the court to interfere in matters of pos- 
session and the devil. The clergy alone had the authority 
to treat such matters. To prevent the clergy from exorcis- 
ing the demoniacs was to deprive the Church of a glory 
which was ordinarily attained by the ministry of Catholic 
priests alone. It was to take away the means of confounding 
infidels and heretics." . . . 

The government lost no time in indicting these preachers. 

The decree of the court was read in their convent in the 
presence of all the Capuchins assembled. 

The commission, composed of physicians, charged with 
making a report concerning the condition of Martha Brossier, 
after an examination lasting forty days, declared that they 
were unable to discover in the said girl any sign of posses- 
sion, and that whatever seemed extraordinary about her was 
natural and easily explained. Thereupon the court ordered 
that the said Martha, her father, and her two sisters be 
conducted to their place of habitation, and there live under 
the surveillance of a special officer of the court, who every 
two weeks was to make report as to the condition of the 
girl. 



THE ART OF 31 AGIO. 67 

In every country where the laws are respected by all classes 
of society, the matter would haye terminated upon the exe- 
cution of this decree. But in France there existed two 
classes impatient of the yoke of laws. It so happened that 
members of the Catholic clergy were found who slighted 
the king and his decrees. 

Francois de la Rochefoucauld, Bishop of Clermont, and 
later cardinal, in concert with his brother Alexandre, an 
abbot, formed the project of taking Martha Brossier from 
the place where she had been ordered to remain. The 
abbot was intrusted with the execution of this daring pro- 
ject. He came to Romorantin, and, notwithstanding the 
protestations of the officer who guarded her, took away the 
girl, her sisters and father, conducted them to Auvergne, 
lodged them at Clermont in the episcopal seat, and made 
them play in that province, as well as in all the places 
through which they passed, their disgusting farces. 

The government, informed of the conduct of the two 
brothers La Rochefoucauld, had them formally summoned 
to appear at court on December 3, 1599. They did not 
obey, upon which the bishop and his brother were ordered 
to surrender Martha Brossier and her family to the city of 
Romorantin, and it was decreed that all the temporal goods 
and income of the bishop should be seized, and a commis- 
sioner was sent to see to the execution of this decree. 

Instead of taking Martha Brossier to her native city, the 
abbot formed the resolution to conduct her to Rome. 

Henry IV. was powerless to prevent the intrigues of the 
rebellious priests, who were spreading trouble in the king- 
dom and were arraying against him the still powerful party 
of the Jesuits who had fled to Rome. He was forced, how- 



68 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

ever, to have recourse to diplomatic negotiations, and to 
despatch special envoys to his ambassador in Kome. 

The abbot, finding himself anticipated, and in fact aban- 
doned by the Pope, renounced at length his ridiculous and 
dangerous projects. 

In Eome also there appeared from time to time persons 
alleging themselves to be possessed by the devil, but the 
Pope had them savagely whipped, and the evil spirit de- 
parted with astonishing celerity. 

ok EXOKCISMS. 

The following curious incident took place at Lyons towards 
the beginning of the sixteenth century : The sisters of the 
nunnery dedicated to Saint Peter lived in a not strictly re- 
ligious manner, so that, indeed, the higher clergy were 
finally obliged to send the sisters away from the nunnery. 
When they became aware of their impending expulsion, they 
seized upon everything of value. Crosses enriched with 
precious stones, reliquaries of gold, and a great number and 
variety of other ornaments were taken. Among those who 
came out of the nunnery, and lived a life of unusual de- 
pravity, was Sister Alix de Tisieux, secretary of the nun- 
nery. Possessed of great beauty, she sank into all kinds of 
wickedness, for which in the end she paid the penalty with 
her life. Stricken down with sufferings and misery, she 
died some time afterwards near a village close beside Lyons. 

In the mean time new laws were passed with respect to 
the nunnery, and a few of the sisters who expressed their re- 
pentance and willingness to respect their vows were taken 
back. Among the latter was Antoinette de Groslee, a scion 
of one of the noblest families of the kingdom. She was re- 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 69 

markable f or her beauty/ and though not more than eigh- 
teen years old, she enjoyed the reputation of being " ex- 
tremely wise " among her associates. She had known Sister 
Alix, and the latter often spoke of her during the delirium 
of her fatal sickness. 

Now it happened that on a certain night Antoinette, 
while lying on her bed, but half asleep, felt "something" 
cautiously drawing the curtains of her bed apart and with 
astounding audacity kiss her on the lips. This recalled her 
to her senses (as well it might), and she sought in vain to dis- 
cover the guilty one, but finally fell asleep again. Antoi- 
nette spoke to no one of this first apparition ; in fact, she 
began to look upon it as a dream or an illusion, when at the 
end of a few days she heard a noise near her and light taps 
under her feet. This noise, which seemed to come from 
under the ground, and which thereafter was repeatedly re- 
newed, frightened the young girl, and she straightway told 
everything to the sister superior. The latter tried to allay 
her fears, and being desirous that she should herself wit- 
ness this strange apparition, summoned the supernatural 
being to manifest its presence before her. Hardly were the 
words uttered when they heard the taps under the feet of 
Antoinette, which left not the slightest doubt that a spirit 
had come to dwell in the nunnery. Many persons hurried 
thither in the hope of witnessing the strange apparition, but 
nobody was able to satisfy his curiosity, because no "he" 
was allowed to cross the threshold of the nunnery. But as 
the said spirit did not in the least attempt any wickedness 
or harm, the sisters began to get over their fears. They 
would have been willing even to enter into communication 
with it had they had perfect assurance that it was " a re- 



70 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

spectable spirit. " They to this end asked Antoinette de 
Groslee what she thought the spirit might be. She replied 
that having often dreamed of Sister Alix de Tisieux, she could 
not think otherwise but that it was the soul of the said sister 
which manifested itself to her. They then conjured the 
spirit to dissipate the doubt they entertained upon that sub- 
ject, and the spirit spoke. It said that it really was Sister 
Alix de Tisieux. Immediately the sister superior summoned 
her council, which deliberated for a long time, and finally 
decided that the body of the said sister should be exhumed 
from the spot where it reposed and be transported into one 
of the chapels of the nunnery. This translation was made 
with great pomp, and the spirit manifested its joy by strik- 
ing more loudly than eyer under the feet of the young and 
beautiful possessed one. The ceremony being now ended, 
it was decided that the soul of poor Sister Alix should be 
delivered, if possible, from the pains of purgatory, and to 
make "assurance doubly sure" that the devil had not em- 
ployed this subterfuge to torment these good sisters. 

It was on Friday, the 22d of February, 1526, that the 
Bishop of Lyons, accompanied by several priests, visited the 
nunnery in order to discover whether it was really the soul 
of the defunct nun or an evil spirit that caused all the 
trouble. When everything had been prepared for the exor- 
cisms, and those present swore under pain of excommunica- 
tion to reveal nothing of what they might see or hear, the 
bishop and the sister superior proceeded into the meeting- 
room, where the bishop took his seat upon a throne that 
had been prepared for him. Following came the abbess and 
the sisters, each according to her rank and age. When 
everything was ready, the bishop rose and sprinkled the 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 71 

room with holy water, invoking the Supreme aid. Then the 
abbess, followed by one of the oldest sisters, brought forth 
the one possessed, who knelt upon a marble step in a man- 
ner so that the noise which the spirit might make should be 
easily heard. The bishop asked her first how she was, 
" Very well, thank God ! " she replied. Then he spoke to 
her about the spirit which manifested its presence by tap- 
ping under her feet. The bishop thereupon made the sign 
of the cross upon her forehead, stretching his hands over 
her head, and spoke in the following manner to those pres- 
ent : 

" My dear lords and brethren, it is a notorious fact that 
the angel of darkness transforms himself often into an angel 
of light, and by some means deceives and astounds the ig- 
norant. From fear, therefore, lest by reason of some wicked 
motive, he, the devil, may have lodged in the building occu- 
pied by these good religious women, we first of all wish to 
smite him and drive him out if he is in this place, armed as 
we are with the spiritual sword, that he in no way disturb 
our holy meditations and intentions ! " 

Having thus spoken, the reverend bishop addressed him- 
self directly to the spirit in the following terms : 

" Come forward, if you dare, spirit of darkness, if it be 
true that thou hast taken thy habitation in the midst of 
these simple-minded sisters ; hear my voice, prince of false- 
hood, grown old in reprobation, destroyer of virtue, in- 
ventor ofrniquities ; hear what a sentence we pronounce 
against thy frauds. Thou art ashamed of us, and thou 
breathest forth madness and rage against us, for thou wilt 
be obliged to go hence and abandon to us this paradise ; 
thou triest to deceive us, but we are on the watch against 



72 TEE ART OF MAGIC. 

thy treasons. It is on this account that we fortify this spot 
with the sign of the cross, against which thy malignity is 
powerless. We therefore, by the authority which God 
transmitted unto us, whether thou art inclined to some ma- 
lignant art or mockest in this place the servants of Jesus 
Christ, or even if thou hast deceived any one of these inno- 
cent-minded ones, we order thee to depart at once. I ad- 
jure thee by Him who will come to judge the living and 
the dead, and the world at large by fire ! " 

When the bishop had finished adjuring the evil spirit, 
those present awaited with impatience the answer it would 
make. But in vain all necks were stretched ; it did not reply. 
The bishop therefore anew armed himself against it, and 
proceeded in the following terms : 

" Cursed spirit ! Kecognize that thou art one of those 
angels who were formerly hurled from the mountain of 
God into the infernal abyss. That, after having lost thy 
wisdom, thou hast found no other way to replace it except- 
ing through hypocrisy and lies. If it is thou, whatever 
may be thy tartareous (from tartar os, the hell of the ancient 
Greeks) hierarchy and the pleasure thou takest in deceiv- 
ing these excellent nuns, we invoke the Father, we suppli- 
cate the Son, we claim the assistance of the Holy Spirit, 
that its resistless might prevent thee from following the 
steps of our sister, Antoinette. We anathematize thee, oh, 
ancient serpent 1 We interdict thee these places, and also 
the possession of any one of those dwelling here ! We curse 
thee in the name of Jesus Christ, that thou mayest return 
promptly to the habitation of the damned and there gnaw 
thy hellish pride, and that henceforth thou mayest live en- 
chained, abjured, conjured, excommunicated, condemned, 



TEE ART OF MAGIC. 73 

anathematized, interdicted, and exterminated by God, our 
Lord, who will come to judge by fire the living and the dead ! " 

Then, as a sign of malediction, all lights were put out, 
the bells were rang, and the bishop several times struck the 
ground with his heel while summoning the devil to with- 
draw. He then took blessed water and sprinkled it through 
the air, over the ground and upon those present, crying sev- 
eral times, " Discedite omnes qui operamini iniquitatem ! " 
(" Flee all ye who engender iniquity "). He then sent three 
priests to perform the same ceremony in every part of the 
abbey, recommending them especially not to be afraid. 
This recommendation was not useless, for scarcely had they 
entered the dormitory of the sisters, sprinkling their blessed 
water, and crying out, " Discedite omnes qui operamini ini- 
quitatem ! " when a multitude of devils broke forth from 
the dormitory in all haste and rushed upon a young sis- 
ter, a novice, whose parents had, against her will, incarcer- 
ated her in the nunnery. 

This incident threw the assembly into panic, and all were 
ready to follow the first who should flee. The sisters, pale 
and trembling, pressed close upon each other like sheep in 
whose midst a wolf had suddenly sprung. The consterna- 
tion was general, and none knew what saint to appeal to, 
when the sister superior bravely seized the young novice and 
held her until the arrival of help. During that time the 
young girl implored the aid of the Virgin and defended her- 
self as best she could against the evil spirits, which bad not 
yet fully taken possession of her. Finally, after having 
bound her, not without difficulty, with strips of cloth which 
the priests wear around the neck, the three priests were re- 
quested to keep her until after the exorcism of Sister An- 1 



74 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

toinette, which the above unexpected circumstance had in- 
terrupted. History does not inform us what became of that 
yictim of parental cruelty 

After haying purified by means of holy water every part of 
the convent, the bishop celebrated mass, during which An- 
toinette made an offering of white bread and a jar of wine. 
The reverend priest then addressed the following "ha- 
rangue " to those present : 

" My lords and good friends, we, in your presence, com- 
menced and have already succeeded in accomplishing the 
objects for which we are here assembled. First of all, we 
have conjured the evil spirit, have cast it out and excommu- 
nicated it, if by chance it thought of continuing its domicile 
within this young sister. We may well be assured that this 
has been accomplished through the omnipotent aid of God ; 
yet will I ask and ascertain what I wish by interrogating the 
said spirit, that we may be perfectly sure of facts, and by 
our good advice the end may be more securely brought 
about." 

The bishop haying thus spoken, Sister Antoinette was 
made to sit on a chair, placed near that of the prelate, and 
the examination proceeded as follows, by question and 
answer: 

Question. Tell me, spirit, whether thou art truly the 
soul of Sister Alix, formerly secretary here? 

Eeply. Yes. 

Qu. Tell me, whether these bones which have been 
brought here were of thy body ? 

E. Yes. 

Qu. Tell me, whether the unchaste soul so soon as it left 
its body, came to find this maiden ? 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 75 

E. Yes. 

Qu. Tell me, whether any angel is near thee ? 

E. Yes. 

Qu. Tell me, whether that angel is really yery happy ? 

E. Yes. 

Qu. Does that good angel follow thee everywhere thou 
wishest to go ? 

E. Yes. 

Qu. Has he at any time ever left thee ? 

E. No. 

Qu. Tell me, if this good angel comforts and consoles thee 
in thy afflictions and troubles ? 

E. Yes. 

Qu. Canst thou see other angels besides thy own ? 

E. Yes. 

Qu. Dost thou ever see the devil ? 

E, Yes. 

Qu. Tell me, I adjure thee, by the mighty name of God, 
if there is truly any particular spot, called purgatory, where 
all souls can remain which are through divine justice con- 
demned there ? 

E. Yes. 

(This question was a shaft aimed against " the damned as- 
sertions to the contrary of the Lutheran heretics ") 

Qu. Hast thou seen any one in purgatory whom thou 
hast known before in the world ? 

E. Yes. 

Qu. Knowest thou the time when thou wilt be free from 
thy pain ? 

E. No. 
* Qu. Couldst thou be delivered through fasting, prayer, and 
almsgiving ? 



76 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

E. Yes. 

Qu. Tell me, whether a yisit to some holy spot might free 
thee ? 

E. Yes. 

Qu. Can the Pope deliver thee ? 

E. Yes. 

Having asked these questions and many others which it is 
unnecessary to reproduce here, the bishop addressed him- 
self to the soul of Alix in the following terms : 

'■'- My dear sister : Thou perceivest here how this honorable 
and devoted company has been assembled in order to pray 
God the Creator that it may please Him to put an end to the 
pains and sufferings thou endurest, and that thou mayst be 
received into the company of His good angels and saints 
of Paradise." 

During all this time, the spirit moaned and groaned aloud 
under the feet of Antoinette. 

The ceremony being ended, the bishop declared that he 
could not completely absolve the soul of Sister Alix, if she 
had not obtained beforehand from the abbess and sisters 
pardon for the sins she committed while in the abbey. Then 
the young Antoinette, who represented the defunct, knelt 
before the feet of the abbess and said: " My revered mother, 
take pity on me and kindly consent to my absolution," and 
the abbess replied: " My daughter, my friend, I pardon you 
and consent to your absolution," and thereupon the bishop 
pronounced the absolvo. 

A month later, it was about midnight when a sweet voice 
awoke for the last time Sister Antoinette de Groslee and 
said to her: " My dear Antoinette, I come to bid farewell 
to you and your companions. Ever since the day the bishop 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 77 

gave me his benediction to which you replied amen, God 
put an end to my sufferings, which otherwise I would have 
endured during thirty-three years. I go this very day to 
enjoy the happiness of the blessed, but before leaving you, 
I wish once more to announce here my presence, and to this 
end I shall to-night during the prayers make a great noise 
among you." Sister. Alix was true to her word. She caused 
in fact a frightful noise, striking thirty-three distinct blows, 
which indicated the remission of the thirty-three years of 
purgatory to which she had been condemned. The good 
dames of Saint Peter were at first much frightened, but 
when Sister Antoinette gave them the explanation of the 
facts, they praised God for it and rejoiced with the angels 
for the happiness granted to their companion until the end 
of the ages. 

During those times the Catholic clergy, notwithstanding 
their power, understood that it was of the highest im- 
portance sometimes to throw the veil of the marvellous over 
the disorders which but too often compromised the Church. 
Thus we may feel certain that Antoinette de Groslee would 
not have obtained the honors of exorcism, if a few years be- 
fore the conduct of the dames of Saint Peter had been less 
irregular. We also may feel certain that of the poor sister, 
Alix de Tisieux, would have undergone her thirty-three years 
of purgatory, had they not contrived to make a saint of her 
in order to re-establish a little the good name of the sisters. 
As to the apparitions to which Sister Antoinette was subject, 
it might seem hazardous to revoke them altogether. It is 
well known that the walls of a convent are not always very 
high, nor its iron fences strong enough to preserve the in- 
nocence of the cloister from profane seductions. 



78 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

PREJUDICES AND SUPERSTITIOUS BELIEFS, 

In the south of Scotland, when the bride enters the 
house of her husband, she is lifted oyer the threshold of the 
door. To step upon it, or jump voluntarily oyer it, is 
deemed a sign of bad augury. This custom was universal 
in Koine in memory of the Sabine women. It was a re- 
minder that an act of violence had been committed toward 
the women. 

The Scotch, above all people, avoid marriages in the month 
of May. This prejudice was once so deeply rooted among 
them, that in 1684 some enthusiastic young men proposed 
to form a society to advocate the complete cessation of mar- 
riages during that month. The ancients have transmitted 
to us a certain precept that it is only bad women who marry 
during May, the month of flowers and zephyrs : malce nubent 
Maia. 

If anybody sneezes, it is the custom to this day to say 
to him, "God bless you." It is interesting to know that 
sneezing was regarded as something divine among the 
Greeks of old. Xenophon informs us that, on one occasion, 
a soldier happening to sneeze, all those present, with one 
accord, bowed to the god. The verb used by the Greek 
author, and which is commonly translated as "bowed," may 
also imply the idea of some religious act, not simply of 
bowing. In fact, we believe that the real act of the ancient 
Greeks may be easily conjectured, when we say that to- 
day if any one happens to sneeze after nine o'clock in the 
evening, the peasants of Asia Minor are wont to pour wine 
on the ground. 

Neither enlightened Christianity, nor time, nor this 
boasted age of progress and civilization has eradicated the 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 79 

superstitious notions of magic from our day. The world at 
large, the hoi polloi, are still thoroughly permeated with the 
influence of this mysterious art. You, my reader, living in 
this progressive land, may feel that there is only one magic 
influence with which you feel yourself thoroughly per- 
meated, to wit : Uncle Sam's dollars. But I know of 
many other countries with vast buildings, railroads and 
horse-cars, national banks and exchanges, where the su- 
perstitious notions of the magic of three thousand years ago 
still survive, not only among the ignorant, but also among 
the educated. For instance, according to an old Greek 
writer who lived a great many years before Christ, the Per- 
sians considered the Oriental planes (platani) as sacred trees, 
and used to hang on their branches many trinkets of gold 
and silver, which nobody dared to take away. This custom of 
hanging trinkets upon Oriental plane-trees is still prevalent 
in Asia Minor. The people hang trinkets to such trees as 
happen to strike their fancy. I remember that once, in 
Smyrna, my mother went to a picnic, and we put up under 
a beautiful plane-tree ; immediately all the people in the 
party, both young and old, commenced to hang shawls, 
ribbons, handkerchiefs, etc., upon its outstretched branches. 
I was not more than ten years old, but I saw my own mother, 
among the rest, take out of her pocket a pair of small new 
shoes and hang them on the tree. 

It is well known that it was in the firm belief that his in- 
terests were under the special care of a deity, that the 
husbandman of ancient times sowed his seed and watched 
the vicissitudes of its growth ; that the sailor and trades- 
man intrusted life and property to the capricious sea. To- 
day, the husbandman of Asia Minor sows his seed under 



80 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

the settled conviction that St. George or St. James will 
watch oyer his interests and bring to him an abundant 
harvest. The sailor and the trader intrust life and prop- 
erty to St. Nicholas, the patron of all seafaring people. 
Among the ancient Greeks, was not iEolus the god of 
the sailors, of the wind, and Hermes the god of traffick- 
ers ? In the city of Smyrna, in "the upper parish," 
there is a sort of cavern called "the holy secret Virgin." 
This " secret Virgin " is considered the patron of mechan- 
ics, and her abode is daily thronged by all classes of work- 
ingmen, who, in offering a part of their scanty earnings to 
her, earnestly pray that she may not cease to exercise her 
influence oyer their respective callings. Now, it is a fact 
that in ancient times the mechanic traced the skill and 
handicraft which grew unconsciously upon him by practice 
to the direct influence of a god. Artists ascribed the mys- 
terious evolution of their ideas, and poets the inspiration of 
their song, to a supreme and mysterious cause. Everywhere 
in nature was felt the presence of august invisible 
beings — in the sky, with its luminaries and clouds ; on the 
sea, with its fickle, changeful movements; on the earth, 
with its lofty peaks, its plains and rivers. To-day, old 
women in the East pretend to cure all sorts of diseases 
during full moon, and by the influence of invisible beings 
who inhabit, certain stars. They undertake to cure pimples 
on the face by rubbing mud on them during full moon — a 
practice in vogue among the Spartans four hundred years 
B.C. Again the deities of the ancients were represented as 
immortal, and, being immortal, they were, as a consequence, 
supposed to be omnipotent and omniscient. Their physical 
strength was extraordinary, the earth shaking sometimes 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 81 

under their tread. St. George to-day is represented as riding 
on a fiery steed, with a spear in his hand with which he 
killed a fiery dragon — not unlike the sea-serpent so wonder- 
fully described in the fertile and imaginative reports of those 
who did not see it. Mythology, the daughter of magic, 
teaches us that there were tales of personal visits and ad- 
ventures of the gods among men, taking part in battles and 
appearing in dreams. Now, the greater part of those 
peculiar-looking barracks — the so-called churches — that are 
seen nestled on the top of hills and scattered hither and 
thither in the interior of Asia Minor, were erected because 
some devout Christian declared that such a saint appeared 
to him, ordering the erection of a church to his memory. 
In praying, it was a custom of the ancients to lift their 
hands and turn their faces towards the East — a practice still 
extant among the people of Asia Minor. Numerous other 
examples could be adduced to show how widely the super- 
stitious notions of the ancients are still prevalent in many 
parts of the civilized world. 

The belief in the existence of demons, magicians, sorcerers, 
and vampires, the instantaneous changing of one's self into 
an animal, especially a wolf, is to a certain extent quite as 
common to-day in many parts of southeastern Europe as it 
was in the earliest ages of the history of mankind. Nor 
need we "wonder at this. This belief was inculcated by 
tradition, by the holy Scripture, the decisions of councils, 
the authority of several fathers of the Church, the decrees 
of tribunals, and, above all, by prejudice and superstition. 
"We do not wish to cast the slightest doubt upon what 
the Scriptures teach us concerning demons, and those pos- 
sessed of them ; but, on the other hand, how many imposi- 



82 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

tions, frauds, and even crimes have been committed under 
the shelter of that book ! The demoniacs were formerly so 
common — to this day there are people in Europe who 
believe in their existence, and the prophet St. Elias is the 
acknowledged patron of the demoniacs — that the Catholic 
Church had, and still has, special ceremonies and prayers to 
cast out the evil spirits. The young abbots on receiving 
their minor- orders obtained the authority to pronounce 
exorcisms. The Catholic clergy assiduously foster and spread 
the belief in the devil. 

There are countries, however, like the United States, 
England, France, Germany, and free Greece, where magi- 
cians, sorcerers, vampires, etc., have ceased to cloud the 
vision of the people. But I repeat, the Catholic clergy, 
especially in Catholic countries like those of Italy, South 
America, Spain, Cuba, and elsewhere, still foster the belief 
in the supernatural, in magic, and in demoniacs. The 
holy Eomish Inquisition," which accused Galileo of magic 
and impiety, still flourishes. 

It is well known that force compelled Galileo, in order 
to preserve his life, to swear that the earth did not turn 
round. That great man, on re-entering his prison, and not- 
withstanding the danger he was threatened with, could not 
help exclaiming, while striking the ground with his foot, 
E pur si muove ! 

THE JUGGLERS OF INDIA. 

In no part of the world have the subtleties of magic been 
as profoundly studied and so successfully practised as in 
southeastern Asia, particularly in the peninsula of India. 
There, as among the Chinese and Japanese, jugglery has long 



THE ART OF MAGIC, 83 

been a distinct profession. The Chinese and Japanese jug- 
glers, however, scarcely pretend to anything more than mar- 
vellous agility and sleight-of-hand, while among the Hindus 
the secrets of the craft are carefully guarded and clothed in 
a veil of impenetrable mystery. The swallowing of fire, 
sword-swallowing, plate-play, and practice with fans and 
knives are performed equally well by all the Oriental jug- 
glers. Not satisfied, however, with such exhibitions of skill, 
the Hindus aspire, in appearance at least, to overcome the 
laws of nature, and to achieve what the ordinary mind 
would regard as the impossible. Some of their feats, as nar- 
rated by travellers in India, appear absolutely incredible ; yet 
so well substantiated are the accounts that, if the perform- 
ance was a trick, the illusion must have been perfect. 

No one of these feats has excited more interest among the 
English residents of the country, or has been more carefully 
investigated by scientific and medical men, than that of sus- 
pended animation, or retention of life for a given period of 
time after burial. A fakir presents himself and desires to be 
buried alive for thirty days, asserting his power to suspend 
the functions of life for that length of time and to resume 
them at its expiration. His request being complied with, 
and the necessary preparations made, the fakir, apparently 
by an act of will, throws himself into a trance, his eyes close, 
his breathing stops, his body stiffens and assumes the ap- 
pearance of a corpse. The body is then lowered into the 
grave, which is filled up and carefully guarded day and 
night, in order that no confederate may tamper with it. 
When the time allotted has expired, the body is exhumed, the 
lips forced open, and a few drops of a liquid left for the pur- 
pose poured into the mouth. Eesuscitation takes place at 



84 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

once, and in a few moments the fakir rises and walks away, 
somewhat emaciated, indeed, but otherwise as well and vig- 
orous as ever. 

Another performance equally celebrated and even more in- 
explicable is that of spontaneous vegetation. The juggler 
takes the seed of a pomegranate, papaw, or some other fruit, 
and plants it in the ground. Then extracting from his arm 
a drop of blood, he lets it fall upon the spot, and stretching 
out both hands over the place where the seed was planted, he 
sinks apparently into a deep cataleptic sleep. Presently a 
stalk emerges from the ground, shoots up, develops into a 
small bush or tree, which blossoms and bears ripe fruit, all 
in the space of a couple of hours. The juggler with a sud- 
den start recovers possession of his senses, plucks the fruit 
and distributes it among the astonished spectators. 

The three incidents which follow are taken from the nar- 
rative of Jules Jacolliot, Chief Justice of Chandernagore in 
the French East Indies. Jacolliot made careful and ex- 
tended observation of the fakirs, concerning whose perform- 
ances he remarks : 

" We assert nothing positively with regard to most of the 
facts which we are about to relate. The skill derived from 
long experience, charlatanism, and even hallucination itself 
may assist to explain them. We are bound to say, however, 
as impartial and faithful observers, that, though we applied 
the severest tests, to which the fakirs and other initiates in- 
terposed no objection whatever, we never succeeded in de- 
tecting a single case of fraud or trickery. 

" Hue, the missionary, who gives an account of similar 
phenomena witnessed by him in Thibet, was equally at a loss 
to account for them. 






THE ART OF MAGIC. 85 

"We occupy the position which we assumed in our pref- 
ace, yiz. : That of a simple recorder of facts which some re- 
gard as occult manifestations and others as skilful jugglery." 



" Three yases of flowers, so heavy that none but a strong 
man could have lifted them, stood at one end of the terrace. 
Selecting one, the fakir imposed his hands upon it so as to 
touch the edge of the yase with the tips of his fingers. 
Without any apparent effort on his part, it began to move to 
and fro upon its base as regularly as the pendulum of a clock. 
It soon seemed to me that the vase had left the floor with- 
out changing its movement in the least degree, and it ap- 
peared to me to be floating in the air, going from right to 
left at the will of the fakir." 



"Taking a small bamboo stool that stood near, the fakir 
sat down upon it in the Mussulman style with his legs crossed 
beneath him and his arms folded across his chest. At the 
end of a few minutes, during which he appeared to concen- 
trate his attention upon the bamboo stool upon which he was 
sitting, it began to move noiselessly along the floor by short 
jerks, which made it advance three or four inches every 
time. I watched the Hindu attentively, but he was as still 
and motionless as a statue. 

" The terrace was about seven yards long and as many 
wide. It took about ten minutes to traverse the whole dis- 
tance, and when the stool had arrived at the end, it began to 
move backward until it returned to its starting place. Dur- 
ing this performance, which was repeated three times, the 



86 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

fakir's legs, crossed beneath him, were distant from the 
ground the whole height of the stool. 

• •••••• 

" Taking an ironwood cane which I had brought from 
Ceylon, and resting his right hand upon the handle, the 
fakir rose gradually about two feet from the ground. His 
legs were crossed beneath him, and he made no change in 
his position, which was yery like that of those bronze 
statues of Buddha that tourists bring from the far East. 
For more than twenty minutes I tried to see how he could 
thus fly in the face and eyes of all the known laws of gravity ; 
it was entirely beyond my comprehension ; the stick gaye 
him no visible support, and there was no apparent contact 
between that and his body, except through his right hand. 

"As the Hindoo was about to leave me, he stopped in the 
embrasure of the door leading from the terrace to the outside 
stairs, and crossing his arms upon his chest, lifted himself 
up gradually, without any apparent support or assistance, 
to the height of about ten or twelve inches. At the com- 
mencement of his ascension I had seized my chronometer ; 
the entire time from the moment when the fakir commenced 
to rise until he touched the ground again was more than 
eight minutes. 

"As he was making his parting salaam, I asked if he 
could repeat the last phenomenon whenever he pleased. 

" "The fakir/ answered he, emphatically, 'can lift him- 
self up as high as the clouds.' " 

A ludicrously grotesque variation of this performance is 
recorded by another traveller as occurring in a different 
locality. The trick was performed with a coil of rope, and 
was one which it will be admitted required skill of no ordi- 



THE ART OF 3IAGIC. 87 

nary kind. The juggler took the coil in his hand and threw 
it upward by a quick movement. The rope was seen to un- 
wind itself as it ascended until it assumed a perpendicular 
position, as straight as a rod. Grasping it firmly with both 
hands, the juggler began to climb, until at length he reached 
the top, pulled the rope up after him and disappeared. 

How absurd ! exclaims the reader. Absurd or not, this 
performance, as well as that with the pomegranate seed, and 
others quite as incredible, are Touched for by responsible per- 
sons, who claim to have witnessed them. Did they really 
do so, or were they deceived by a cleverly devised illusion ? 
The question is well worth a brief consideration. 

Since there is no reason for suspecting the honesty and 
truthfulness of the witnesses, it is evident that one of two 
alternatives must be accepted ; either through the exercise 
of some unknown and mysterious power the feats recorded 
were actually performed, or the beholders were the victims 
of a most vivid and marvellous hallucination. Arguments 
are not wanting in support of either theory. 

The Hindoo fakirs themselves ascribe their peculiar power 
to a certain "spirit force," or vital fluid that pervades all 
nature. Whoever possesses an excess of this spirit force 
acquires power both over inanimate things and over crea- 
tures less highly endowed, more subtle by far than electri- 
city, heat, or magnetism, which are, indeed, but its grosser 
forms. This vital fluid permeates all existing things and 
serves as arrmeans of communication between them. 

William Crookes, a distinguished scientist, and member 
of the Eoyal Society, has so far convinced himself of the 
existence of some such occult principle, that he is making 
extended investigations with a view to the discovery of its 



88 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

workings and laws. Other investigators also have been at- 
tracted to the subject, and their labors have brought to light 
many singular facts. The well-authenticated phenomena 
of mesmerism are now attributed to the influence of this 
psychic or spirit force. 

"I am convinced/' says Jacolliot, "that there are in 
nature and in man, who is a part of nature, immense 
forces, the laws of which are yet unknown to us. I think 
that man will some day discover these laws, that things that 
we now regard as dreams will appear to us as realities, and 
that we shall one day witness phenomena of which we have 
now no conception. Who knows whether this psychic force, 
as the English call it — this force of the Ego, according to the 
Hindus, which the humble fakir exhibited in my presence, 
will not be shown to be one of the grandest forces in 
nature ? " 

If, however, we reject this scheme of a psychic force as a 
theory not yet proved, may we not account for the marvels 
of the jugglers on the supposition that their dexterity is less 
occupied with the feats themselves than with deluding the 
imagination of the spectators ? There is certainly some 
ground for such a belief. 

In that wonder-land of India, with its mountain plateau, 
wild jungles, and deep sunny valleys, grows many a plant 
whose weird effects on the human brain and nerve are still 
unknown to our materia medica. The subtle powers and 
properties of these plants are well understood by the 
Brahmins and fakirs, but the knowledge is carefully 
guarded, and never revealed except to the initiated. Eu- 
gene Sue, in his novel The Wandering Jeiv, makes skilful 
use of one of these drugs, the Benghawar Djambi, which, it 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 89 

is said, if inhaled when burning so affects the imagination 
of those present that whatever is described in words seems 
to occur before their eyes with all the vividness of reality. 
May not the fakirs make secret use of some similar prepara- 
tion ? 

Another curious drug, extensively employed in Arabia, 
Persia, and India, is hashish, a resinous substance extracted 
from the Indian hemp plant. It is smoked, made into a 
decoction, and eaten in the form of confectionery. Taken 
in moderation, it awakens in the mind a succession of pleas- 
ing thoughts and images ; but an overdose creates the most 
startling and life-like hallucinations, and plunges the 
imagination into alternate scenes of ecstasy and horror. 
This was the drug employed to delude his followers by 
Hassan Sabah, the " Old Man of the Mountains," founder 
of the famous sect of the assassins. When a recruit was 
wanted, some promising youth was invited to a banquet and 
the conversation turned upon the joys that awaited the 
faithful in Paradise. Then a cup of wine, drugged with 
hashish and some quick narcotic, was handed to the youth, 
who forthwith sank into a deep sleep and*was conveyed 
into a valley whose natural beauty was enhanced by every 
device that art could suggest. Birds of brilliant plumage 
sang amid the foliage of exotic plants, rare fruits of unknown 
flavor hung from the loaded trees, here and there gushed 
forth fountains of choicest wines, while through the groves 
flitted troops of maidens whose natural loveliness the glamour 
of hashish rendered truly angelic. After a few hours spent 
in this paradise, the neophyte was again drugged to sleep, 
and carried back to the banquet hall. When he awoke he 
was informed that he had been absent just one minute — 



90 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

that he had had one glimpse of heaven ; but that implicit 
obedience to the chiefs command would win him that bliss 
for all eternity. What wonder that Hassan Sabah had de- 
yoted followers, that empires trembled at his name, and that 
the mightiest rulers of the East obsequiously courted his 
favor ! 

Chinese magic is remarkable for its various and elaborate 
modes of divination. These maybe obtained from medicines 
possessed by spirits and from oracles in writing with "the 
descending pencil/' as has lately been done by "spiritual- 
ists." There is also another magic in vogue in this country 
which regulates the building of houses and tombs by their 
local aspects. This has of late come under the notice of 
Europeans from the unexpected impediments it has placed 
in their way when constructing railways on Chinese soil. 

In the lower stages of civilization the distinction be- 
tween religion and magic hardly appears, the functions of 
priest and sorcerer being still blended. As established 
religions were formed, the separation became more dis- 
tinct between the official rites of the priesthood and those 
practised by tlie magicians, the rivalry between them often 
becoming serious. Thus in ancient Egypt there were on 
the one hand the miracles worked by divinities under the 
official sanction of the priesthood, and on the other the un- 
licensed proceedings of sorcerers, who doubtless deserved ill 
of society on account of their detestable practices. Laws were 
made against magic in these ancient times, but it must be re- 
membered that both then and a few thousands of years later 
this opposition to magic had seldom anything to do with the 
unbelief in its reality which arose among the classic philoso- 
phers. 






THE ART OF MAGIC. ■ 91 

" Hitherto," says an author, " magic has been dealt with 
on its delusive and harmful side, this being that which 
most practically manifests itself in history ; yet it must be 
borne in mind that in its early stages it has been a source of 
real knowledge. Its imperfect arguments have been steps 
toward more perfect reasoning." . . . Erom this point 
of yiew the intellectual position of magic is well expressed 
by Adolphe Bastian : " Sorcery, or in its higher expression, 
magic, marks the first dawning consciousness of mutual con- 
nection throughout nature, in which man, feeling himself 
part of the whole, thinks himself able to interfere for his 
own wishes and needs. So long as religion fills the whole 
horizon of culture, the vague groping of magic contains the 
first experiments which lead to the results of exact science. 
Magic is the physics of mankind in the state of nature. It 
rests in the beginning on induction, which remains without 
result only because in its imperfect judgments by analogy it 
raises the post hoc to the propter hoc, etc. Lastly, the his- 
tory of medicine goes back to the times when primitive sci- 
ence accepted demoniacal possession as the rational means 
of accounting for disease, and magical operations with herbs 
originated their more practical use in materia medica." 

White magic is "the art of performing tricks and exhibit- 
ing illusions by ai<^ of apparatus, excluding feats of dexter- 
ity in which there is no deception, together with the per- 
formances of such automatic figures as are actuated in a 
secret and mysterious manner." White magic is the good 
son — the Abel of sorcery, so to speak — while black magic 
is the Cain of sorcery, and last of all legerdemain is the off- 
spring of Abel. 

White magic may be also termed " natural magic." The 



92 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

Book of Exodus makes the earliest historical reference to 
this natural magic when it records how the magicians of 
Egypt imitated certain miracles of Moses " by their enchant- 
ments." The magicians of ancient Greece and Eome were 
accustomed to astonish their dupes with optical illusions and 
visible representations of the divinities passing before the 
spectators in dark subterranean chambers. The principal 
optical illusion employed in these effects was the throwing 
of spectral images of living persons and other objects upon 
the smoke of burning incense by means of concave metal 
mirrors. The desired effect was often produced in a simpler 
way by causing the dupe to look into a cellar through a basin 
of water with a glass bottom, or by showing him on a dark 
wall figures drawn in inflammable material and suddenly ig- 
nited. The flashes of lightning and the rolling thunders 
which sometimes accompanied these manifestations were 
easy tricks, now familiar to everybody as the ignition of ly- 
copodium and the shaking of sheet metal. 

Towards the end of the last century Comus, a French con- 
jurer, included in his entertainment a figure which suddenly 
appeared and disappeared about three feet above a table, a 
trick explained by the circumstance that a concave mirror 
was among his properties. A contemporary performer, 
Eobert, exhibited the raising of the dead by the same agency. 
Early in the present century Philips fcal caused a sensation in 
his magic-lantern entertainment by lowering unperceived 
between the audience and the stage a sheet of gauze upon 
which vividly fell the moving shadows of phantasmagoria. 

A new era in optical tricks began in 1863, when John 
Nevil Maskelyn, a Ohestelham artist in jewelry, invented a 
wood cabinet in which persons vanished and were made to 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 93 

reappear, although the cabinet was placed upon high feet, 
with no passage through which a person could pass from it 
to the stage floor. The cabinet was examined and measured 
for concealed space, and watched by persons from the audi- 
ence during the whole of the transformation. The general 
principle undoubtedly was this : If a looking-glass be set 
upright in the corner of a room, bisecting the right angle 
formed by the walls, the side wall reflected will appear as if 
it were the back, and hence an object may be hidden behind 
the glass, yet the space seems to remain unoccupied. This 
principle, however, was so carried out that no sign of the 
existence of any mirror was discernible under the closest in- 
spection. 

A year or two later Colonel Stodard exhibited the illu- 
sion in an extended form, by placing a pair of mirrors in the 
centre of the stage, supported between the legs of a three- 
legged table having the apex toward the audience ; and as 
the side walls of his stage were draped exactly like the back, 
reflection showed an apparently clear space below the table 
top, where in reality a man in a sitting position was hidden. 
The plane mirror illusion is so effective that it has been 
reproduced with modifications by various performers. 

Among the acoustic wonders of antiquity, fabled or real, 
were the speaking head of Orpheus and the golden virgins, 
whose voices resounded through the temple of Delphi. The 
voice was really that of a concealed assistant who spoke 
through the flexible gullet of a crane. Toward the close 
of the tenth century Gerbert (Pope Sylvester II.) constructed 
a brazen head which answered questions ; and similar in- 
ventions are ascribed to Eoger Bacon and others. In the first 
half of the seventeenth century the philosopher Descartes 



94 THE ART OF MAGIC, 

made a speaking figure, which he called his daughter Fran- 
china, and the superstitious captain of a vessel had it thrown 
overboard. In the same century, an Englishman exhibited 
at the court of Charles II. a wooden figure with a speaking- 
trumpet in its mouth, and questions whispered in its ear 
were answered — through a pipe secretly communicating 
with an apartment wherein was a learned priest able to con- 
verse in various languages. 

In 1783 Giuseppe Pinetti de Wildale, an Italian conjurer 
of great originality, among his many wonders exhibited 
upon a bottle a toy bird which fluttered, blew out a candle, 
and warbled any melody proposed or improvised by the 
audience, doing this also when removed from the bottle 
to a table, or when held in the performer's hand upon any 
part of the stage. The sounds were produced by a con- 
federate who imitated song birds after Kossignol's method, 
with the aid of the inner skin of an onion in the mouth ; 
and speaking-trumpets directed the sounds to whatever 
spot was occupied by the bird. 

Lucian tells of the magician Alexander, in the second 
century, that he received written questions inclosed in sealed 
envelopes, and a few days afterward delivered written re- 
sponses in the same envelopes, with the seals apparently 
unbroken. In this deception we have the germ of u spirit- 
reading" and " spirit-writing. " The so-called "second- 
sight" trick depends upon a system of signalling between 
the exhibitor who moves among the audience, collecting 
questions to be answered and articles to be described, and 
the performer, who is blindfolded on the stage. 

Fire tricks, such as walking on burning coals, breathing 
flame and smoke from a gall-nut filled with an inflani- 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 95 

mable composition, or dipping the hands into boiling pitch, 
were known in early times, and are explained by Hippoly- 
tus. These performers anointed their mouths, hands, and 
feet with a protective composition. It is remarkable how 
many of the illusions regarded as the original inventions 
of eminent conjurers have been really improvements upon 
older tricks. In 1834 was first exhibited in England a 
trick which a Brahmin had been seen to perform at Madras 
several years before. Ching Lan Lauro sat cross-legged 
upon nothing, one of his hands only just touching some 
beads hung upon a genuine hollow bamboo, which was 
set upright in a hole on the top of a wooden stool. The 
placing of the performer in position was done behind a 
screen, and the explanation of the mysterious suspension 
is, that he passed through the bamboo a strong iron bar, to 
which he connected a support which, concealed by the 
beads, his hand, and his dress, upheld the body. In 1849 
Eobert Houdin reproduced the idea under the title of ethe- 
real suspension, — professedly rendering his son's body de- 
void of weight by administering to him vapor of ether, 
and then, in sight of the audience, laying him in a hori- 
zontal position in the air with one elbow resting upon a 
staff resembling a long walking-stick. The support was a 
jointed iron frame under the boy's dress, with cushions and 
belts passing round and under the body. 

There_js no reason for supposing that the ancient magi- 
cians were more proficient in the art than their modern suc- 
cessors. As Eobert Houdin has pithily observed, (i If anti- 
quity was the cradle of magic, it is because the art was yet in 
its infancy." Towards the close of the reign of Elizabeth, 
the profession had fallen into great disrepute in England, 



96 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

and the performers were classed with ruffians, blasphemers, 
thieves, vagabonds, Jews, Turks, heretics, pagans, and sorcer- 
ers. In 1840 a German physicist, named Dobler, devised an 
entertainment which gave an entirely new development to the 
science and was in effect the same as the conjuring enter- 
tainments which have since become so familiar and popular. 

The secrets of legerdemain were for a long time jealously 
guarded by its professors, but in 1859 R. Houdin issued 
" Les Secrets de la Prestidigitation de la Magie, a masterly 
exposition of the entire art and mystery of conjuring/' 

Modern magic calls to its aid all the appliances of modern 
science — electricity, magnetism, optics, and mechanics ; but 
the most successful adepts in the art look down upon all 
such adventitious aids and rely upon address and sleight of 
hand alone. The prestidigitateur's motto is, "The quick- 
ness of the hand deceives the eye." 

"A prestidigitateur," says Robert Houdin, "is not a 
juggler ; he is an actor playing the part of a magician, an 
artist whose fingers should be more clever than nimble. 
I would even add that, in the practice of legerdemain, the 
calmer the movements are, the more easy is it to produce 
an illusion to the spectators." Elsewhere he says: "To 
succeed as a conjurer three things are essential : first, dex- 
terity ; second, dexterity ; and third, dexterity." And this 
is not a mere trick of language, for triple dexterity is re- 
quired, not only to train the hand to the needful adroitness, 
but to acquire the requisite command of eye and tongue. 

The most eminent conjurers of the modern school have 
been Robert Houdin, Wiljalba, Frikele, and Robin. The 
prince, however, of the prestidigitateurs of this age is the 
American mystifier, Alexander Herrmann, 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 97 

Alexander Herrmann was born in Paris, in 1844. His 
father, S. Herrmann, was one of the most noted prestidigi- 
tateurs of his time, and his dexterity was so masterly that 
the then reigning Sultan of Turkey used to pay him £1,000 
per night for a single entertainment. It is to Herrmann that 
we must look for the elaboration of " the method of draw- 
ing different liquors from a single tap in a barrel, the barrel 
being divided into compartments, each haying an air-hole 
at the top, by means of which the liquid in any of the 
compartments is withheld or permitted to flow." It 
was S. Herrmann and not Robert Houdin, as alleged by 
some writers, who "applied the principle to a wine-bottle 
held in his hand, from which he would pour four different 
liquids, regulated by the unstopping of any of the four tiny 
air-holes covered by his fingers. A large number of very 
small liquor glasses being provided on trays, and containing 
drops of certain flavoring essences, enabled him to supply 
imitations of various wines and liquors, according to the 
glasses into which he poured syrup from the bottle ; while 
by a skilful substitution of a full bottle for an emptied one, 
or by secretly refilling in the act of wiping the bottle with 
a cloth, he produced the impression that the bottle was 
inexhaustible." The above statement, which is attributed 
by an English writer to Robert Houdin, varies but little 
from another which appeared in 1837 in the American 
newspaper, The Stamboul, published in Constantinople. 
The Sultan was so amazed at this trick that, stroking his 
beard in Oriental fashion, he exclaimed, "Mashala! 
Mashala ! " which in English may be translated, " Wonder- 
ful ! wonderful ! " A wonderful exclamation, indeed, for 
the taciturn Turk. 
7 



98 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

Sixteen children were born to Herrmann by bis wife 
Anna, of whom eight were boys, and the rest girls. The 
eldest of the children, C. Herrmann, who recently died in 
Bohemia, leaving an estate valued close upon two million 
francs, had not for a great many years his equal in the world 
as a prestidigitateur, until his younger brother, Alexander 
Herrmann, came to the front to dispute his laurels. " I 
was eight years old/' said Alexander Herrmann, "when I 
appeared with my brother on the stage at St. Petersburg. 
My father was unwilling to let me give up my studies, but, 
finally, he consented when my brother agreed to engage a 
professor of languages purposely for me. The professor 
travelled with us, and for several years he remained exclu- 
sively my tutor." 

Alexander Herrmann remained with his brother for six 
years. At fourteen, his parents, desirous of giving him the 
advantages of a liberal education, placed him in a college 
at Vienna, where his remarkable intellect and bright wit 
astonished the professors, and caused them to predict un 
futur extraordinaire for the young scholar. It was during 
his year of college life that he became possessed of books 
containing accounts of Eobert Houdin, Balsam o, and oth- 
ers, the perusal of which influenced and predestined his fu- 
ture career. The years spent in travelling with his brother 
also tended greatly to foster and develop his talent and in- 
clination for the art of magic. From infancy he exhibited 
a power of discernment and ingenuity truly marvellous, and 
often during his college life, after witnessing or reading of 
some sleight-of-hand performance, he would closet himself 
in his room for hours, finally to appear and amaze the stu- 
dents by performing the same or equally startling feats. 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 99 

At the age of fifteen college duties became irksome to 
him, and he determined to seek his fortune as a magician. 

Beginning his professional career in Spain, in 1859, he 
has travelled through America, France, England ? Ireland, 
Scotland, Wales, Siberia, Central America, Cuba, South 
America, Hungary, Germany, Italy, Turkish Empire, 
Canada, Buenos Ayres, New Granada, Holland, Belgium, 
Eussia, Prussia, and Austria, meeting with the greatest 
success and receiving the highest encomiums of the press 
and public. 

As a linguist he has established a claim beyond peradven- 
ture, as he converses correctly and fluently in seven dis- 
tinct languages, viz.: French, Spanish, German, English, 
Kussian, Italian, and Portuguese. Besides speaking these 
languages, the studies he has been compelled to pursue, 
such as physics and chemistry, to gain for himself perfection 
in the art of legerdemain, have given him more than a pass- 
ing insight into Latin and Greek. 

Between Alexander Herrmann and his brother C. Herr- 
mann there has always existed the deepest brotherly devotion. 
His brother was seventy-one years old when he died. Dur- 
ing his time he lost and won four princely fortunes. In 
form he was tall, slender, with dark piercing eyes, a high 
forehead, and withal a most polished gentleman. The 
Figaro, under date of January 27, 1886, thus speaks of 
him : 

" The whole of Vienna assembled yesterday at the house 
of one of the most popular men of the capital — at the resi- 
dence of Professor C. Herrmann — the famous prestidigita- 
teur, that elegant Parisian whom the chances of life have 
lodged in one of the streets of the Danubian city. Herr- 



100 TBE ART OF MAGIC. 

mann was celebrating the seventieth anniversary of his birth- 
day by a f 6te, at which were present the aristocracy of the 
city, together with all the celebrities of art and literature. 
Among those present we noticed Prince Metternich, Count 
Zichy, Count Wittzek, Count Samezan, Prince F. Liechten- 
stein, Count Glamgallas, the two Barons de Rothschild, and, 
a thing most rare in Vienna, all these princes and barons 
were crowded in among the artists, the painters, the men of 
letters and other less distinguished citizens, friends and ac- 
quaintances of C. Herrmann. The fact is, that Herrmann 
is not only the Napoleon of prestidigitateurs, he is at the 
same time a perfect gentleman of the highest possible re- 
spectability, full of wit, and above all a thorough connois- 
seur of art ; for he has gathered in the course of his travels 
treasures of faience, bronzes, and antique marbles to such 
an extent that his apartments are a veritable museum. 
Finally, he is a something and somebody in Vienna. He is 
admitted into every grade of society ; in a word, all classes of 
society seek him. 

"He is also the international man of the capital. Where 
was he born ? 'I think in Hanover, but it was by a mere 
chance. His family is of Alsatian origin. 

" An Alsatian by origin, born in Germany, raised in 
France, living in Austria, Herrmann is above all a Parisian, 
who took up his residence in Vienna that he might speak 
well of Paris." 

« . . . . . » 

Such a man was the brother of our Alexander Herrmann. 
If we may be allowed, however, to draw a comparison regard- 
ing the professional and artistic skill of the brothers, we 
unhesitatingly pronounce in favor of the younger ; for the 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 101 

elder depended upon and made extensive use of mechanical 
contrivances, and assigned to palmistry an important part, 
while the younger invariably deceives the eye of the beholder 
by his wonderful dexterity. He also excels in what the 
French call "avoir de Vceil" "having a good eye." An 
earnest, continued look of the performer in a particular di- 
rection will carry every one's eyes with it, while a glance 
at the hand which is performing some operation that should 
be kept secret will ruin all. 

It may be seen from the above that magic art and the 
name of Herrmann for some years have been almost synony- 
mous. "It is in the blood," says A. Herrmann. "A pres- 
tidigitateur is born such ; he can never become one simply 
by study." 

Alexander Herrmann first made his appearance in Amer- 
ica in the year 1861. He returned to Europe a year later to 
fill an important engagement in the leading capitals of 
Europe. In 1874 he again returned to this country, and on 
board the steamer he met a charming lady. It was love at 
first sight. "I knew," says Herrmann, "that the time 
was short ; in ten days we would be in New York, but 
Mademoiselle fortunately spoke French, and, comme de re- 
sultat, when we reached New York we went straight to pay 
our respects to Mayor Wickham, who married us. Ah, mon- 
sieur," continued Mr. Herrmann, and his expressive eyes 
flashed with love and admiration, "I could not tell you 
how cliarmante, how good my wife has been to me." We 
assured Mr. Herrmann that all who knew Mme. Herr- 
mann always spoke of her as "the charming Mme. Herr- 
mann." "It is just so, Mon Dieu ! She is a companion, 
camarade." 



102 TEE ART OF MAGIC. 

As it has been stated, Alexander Herrmann has travelled in 
almost every part of the globe. The jugglers of India, the 
dervishes of Turkey, the Bedouins of Egypt, the Marabouts 
of Arabia, all have proclaimed him the Allah of Magic. 
Crowned heads have attended his performances or invited 
him to delight them in the palace. Don Alphonso XII., 
Rey Constitutional de VEspana, conferred upon him the 
decoration of " Comendador or dinar io de la Real or den de 
Isabel la CatolicaP The King of Portugal also bestowed 
upon him the distinguished decoration of " Cavalleiro da 
Real Ordern Militar Portuguera de Nosso Senhor Jesus 
Christ o." 

The severest critics in Europe have declared Alexander 
Herrmann to be unparalleled in the history of magic art. 
The Germans are least of all given to praise, yet a German 
paper thus spoke of him : " The name of A. Herrmann 
is familiar throughout the entire world. It was he who 
one day while by the sea-shore at Ostend caused the brace- 
let of a lady to disappear from her wrist, threw it iuto the 
sea, and a moment later returned it to her tied with a rib- 
bon in a beautiful bouquet which he took from the hat of 
the lady's husband. 

" One day while seated in an omnibus, he felt the 
light-fingered hand of a thief in his pocket. Herrmann 
seized him, recovered his pocket-book, took from the thief's 
pocket a number of other purses the latter had stolen, 
and turned property and thief over to the police. 

' £ It is he who goes to the markets, buys chickens or living 
rabbits, cuts their throats, and then reattaching the neck, 
returns to the frightened dealers their property without the 
slightest sign of the operation performed upon them. 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 103 



a 



We saw him put into a tin pan three rings, borrowed 
from three persons in the auditorium, break some eggs over 
them, and out of this omelet of precious stones there came 
forth three white doves wearing around their necks the 
three rings attached by silk ribbons. 

" He put into three different pots some beans of coffee, 
white common beans, and some grains of wheat, and the 
three pots were closed simultaneously at the striking of his 
wand. A minute later the pots were found to contain real 
coffee, milk, and sugar, and out of them he filled seventy- 
Jive cups, which he passed to the audience. 

" He put four watches into a large revolver of the bull-dog 
pattern, filled it with powder and balls, jammed them all 
down with an iron rod, fired, and the watches were found 
hanging from the back of a gentleman in the auditorium. 

"He caused his wife, Mrs. Addie Herrmann, to enter into 
a magical chest, locked her in, and a minute later the lady 
was found occupying a seat in the middle of the parquet. 
He accomplished many other prodigies, not the least curious 
of which seems to us to be the following : He borrowed a 
hat from a gentleman in the theatre, and out of this hat he 
brought forth two hundred and twenty-five gold pieces, a 
vast amount of paper, two rabbits, six bouquets, a dozen 
cups, and many other different things. He then asked his 
servant to return the hat to its owner, but the awkward serv- 
ant slipped, fell upon the hat and made it flat as a cracker. 
Mr. Herrmann was very sorry, very sorry indeed, and did 
not know what to do to restore it to its former condition. 
Finally an idea struck Mme. Hermann : The cannon ! 

" An energetic remedy indeed ! Mr. Herrmann tore the 
hat into shreds, which he- put into the cannon. Then the 



104 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

cannon was taken into the middle of the stage, where it really 
caused a moment of panic in the upper galleries, followed 
by a precipitous flight. The cannon was fired and the hat 
appeared on the roof of the theatre, from which Mr. Herr- 
mann caused it' to drop in its original shape by firing his 
pistol." 

HOW ME. HEEEMAN^ GETS EID OE U^DESIEABLE 
COMPAKIO^S. 

A few years ago Mr. Herrmann had an engagement to ap- 
pear in Alexandria during the great Turkish feast of Eha- 
mazan. On arriving at his hotel, he was told by the 
proprietor that on account of the holidays the house, as was 
the case with nearly all the other leading hotels in the city, 
was crowded. Mr. Herrmann was unable, offer what he 
would, to obtain a room to himself. The proprietor had 
only one large room with two beds in it to offer, one of 
which was taken by a Turk from Constantinople. Mr. 
Herrmann, as he could not help matters, agreed to take the 
room, but on going into it noticed that "the fire of the 
Turk's eye flashed in a very uncomfortable manner as it fell 
on my watch-chain." He made up his mind that he would 
have the room to himself, and so he did. This is the way 
the Professor accomplished it : 

"It was three o'clock in the afternoon, and I had not 
many hours before me, as I was to be at the theatre at 
half-past seven. The Turk was watching me unpacking 
my trunks. When I had a good 6 catch ' at his eye, I 
snatched a ferocious-looking dagger, lifted it quickly and 
stuck it into my wrist. At the sight of the blood, the 
Turk rushed from the room, and would not stay in the 



THE ART OF MAGIC. . 105 

hotel, nor would he come back into the room for his bag- 
gage." 

This trick is an easy and simple one, since it consists 
only in fitting to the arm a knife made for that purpose, the 
blade of which is divided into two parts, joined together by 
a spring of the horse-shoe shape. When the arm is placed 
between the two halves of the blade and the spring con- 
cealed by the cuff, it appears as if the arm was pierced. 
The performer makes faces and contortions, as if he felt the 
sharpest agony. The blood is an innocent preparation 
which, by the quickness of the movement, appears to drop 
from the wounded wrist, while in reality it comes from the 
palm of the hand which holds the hilt. 

A few years ago Mr. Herrmann appeared in Bruxelles. 
What he did there is best described in the words of the 
leading newspaper of that city : 

" We considered ourselves biases as regards prestidigita- 
tion. We have seen so many of those dexterous men who 
made us suppose a pair of spectacles to be real lanterns. 
Ever since the time of Bosco — let us acknowledge also that 
we have known Bosco personally, although this fact does not 
render us any the younger — as well as Conte, whose tricks 
with cards have remained almost legendary ; in a word, we 
can remember the beginning of modern magic art in Europe. 
We can recall Philippe, the inventor of the trick of the 
fishes, so well perfected since, and Eobert Houdin, and 
Eobin, 'the man of ghosts/ and Cazenave, and twenty 
others ; yes, a hundred others who have been successively 
pronounced more surprising than their predecessors, and 
cited as having reached the Herculean columns of prestidi- 
gitation. But where are the columns that do not give way 



106 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

to-day ? The reason why is, that after Bosco, Conte, Phi- 
lippe, Eoberfc Houdin, Brunet, Verly, Kobin, Cazenave, 
tutti quanti, Herrmann has appeared to prove to us that we 
were wrong in believing ourselves biases as regards omelets 
transformed into living doves and handkerchiefs restored 
more immaculate than before after having been burned 
under our eyes. 

" We knew this unparalleled Herrmann twenty years ago 
in Bruxelles, and he has seemed to us ever since to substan- 
tiate the truth of the axiom which we have just mentioned, 
to wit, that every prestidigitateur is superior to the one seen 
before. Herrmann has done in fact better ; he has risen 
above himself. The Herrmann of to-day is superior to the 
Herrman of twelve or fifteen years ago, just as he is to-day 
superior to all who have preceded him. 

" First of all, he is a true gentleman. To see him in silk 
stockings, culotte collante, a black coat fitting well to the 
body, dazzling linen, well-trimmed mustachios, to see his 
easy gesture, distinguished appearance, flowing and natural 
elocution, one would believe that a lecture was to be 
delivered by a scholar rather than that a seance on magic 
was about to take place. However, magic in the true 
sense of the word is being performed before you. At the 
same time, the address and the dexterity of the hands cause 
you to pass from surprise to surprise. Perhaps all the feats 
of Herrmann are not new, although many are of his own in- 
vention ; but the best known are performed with a grace, 
an easiness, a facility which impart to them complete new- 
ness. 

" Who does not remember the famous chest of the Daven- 
port brothers ? and the not less famous chest of India, two 



! 



THE ABT OF MAGIC. 107 

masterly tricks which have drawn everywhere immense 
crowds to see them ? Herrmann does better still ; he com- 
bines the two tricks into one ; he forces, as it were, the chest 
of India into that of the Davenports, and by doubling the 
difficulty he doubles the surprise, not to say the stupefac- 
tion of the spectators. 

" However, seance of prestidigitation cannot be told in 
words. One must go and see for himself/' 

• •••••• 

THE MAEQUIS AKD THE PARTRIDGES. 

Don Mariano del Prado, Marquis de Acapulco, invited 
Herrmann to dinner while the latter was astonishing the 
chivalrous Spaniards with his amazing feats a few years ago 
in Madrid, Herrmann knew that the marquis was especially 
fond of partridges, and he accordingly went to his friend's 
house bent upon "mischief." During dinner the conversa- 
tion turned upon game, and the old marquis was especially 
eloquent upon the subject of partridges and wished that he 
had provided some. Herrmann thereupon assured the mar- 
quis that nothing could be easier than to have his wish sat- 
isfied. 

" What do you mean ? " said Don Mariano del Prado. 

"I mean," said Herrman, ■" that no friend of mine shall 
express a wish before me without having it instantly grati- 
fied." 

Thereupon he asked the waiter to bring him his hat, 
turned it upside down, and by a dexterous movement of the 
hand brought out two of the finest partridges the marquis 
had ever seen. It is useless to say that this simple trick, as 
the saying is, brought down the house. 



108 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

In order to perform this trick, it is necessary to be pro- 
Tided with a high hat, made with a false spring bottom, 
with space enough for three or four birds or anything else 
you may choose to take out of it. The spring must be so 
placed that, when it is pressed from the outside of the hat, 
the compartment will open and the birds will fly out, and 
when you relax the pressure it will fly back to its place 
again. Always hold the inside of the hat toward you, or 
elevate it a trifle higher than the audience. 

The following interesting story comes from the pen of 
Alexander Watson : 



CHKISTMAS IK SIBEKIA — A COLD RIDE WITH HERRMANN — 
TO KAYALA IK A RUSSIAN TARANTASS — THE GREAT 
CONJURER ENTERTAINS TWO PARTIES IN THE DREARY 
PENAL COLONY — WONDERS HE PERFORMED. 

"' Dammit!' 

" This good Anglo-Saxon exclamation, uttered in tones of 
exceeding vexation by a nervous, keen-eyed little man in a 
frontier town in Eussia one bitterly cold morning in the 
winter of 1879, attracted my attention. His face — and 
such a weird, uncanny face it was — was the picture of in- 
tense disappointment, and his attitude was one of utter de- 
jection. It was the first English I had heard for weeks, 
and, although spoken with a decided accent, there was a 
spontaneity and vigor to the expression which at once con- 
vinced me that the speaker was familiar with my native 
tongue. Approaching, I asked the nature of his trouble, 
addressing him in English and offering my services. His 
face brightened up and he quickly replied : 






THE ART OF MAGIC. 109 

" ' My dear sare, I am yeery much deestressed. I must go 
to Kayala, and I am too late — too late. The guard has gone 
without me, and I now find I cannot get a — a — what do 
you call it ? — a conveyance, yes, a conveyance.' 

"He spoke rapidly and gesticulated in a nervous, jerky 
way so characteristic of the French. His story was soon told. 
His name was Herrmann, and he was the world-famous con- 
jurer. While relating some of his experiences as a traveller 
at a dinner given in his honor at St. Petersburg by several 
distinguished Eussian officers, he was badgered into accept- 
ing a wager with the dashing General Kourropatkin, the 
successor of Skobeloff, that he dare not make the venture- 
some journey across the steppes to Kayala in midwinter 
and be there in time to dine with the general and his staff 
on Christmas Day. An escort was promised him, and it 
was needed, for the disastrous campaign against the Turco- 
mans had just ended, and the country was overrun with 
lawless bands of freebooters. Herrmann found that the 
escort had gone several days, and hence his dismay expressed 
in the exclamation which begins this hurried sketch. 

" I was a sort of utility man on a London newspaper, and 
was then on my way to the scene of the difficulties in Asia 
Minor, bearing important instructions for the intrepid war 
correspondent, Edmund O'Donovan, who was then con- 
templating that dash to Merv which afterward made him 
famous. Poor O'Donovan ! His bones lie bleaching with 
those of Hicks and Villiers and the rest of that devoted 
band of heroes on the hot sands of the Soudan, where the 
life-blood of Burnaby and so many other brave Britons has 
ebbed away. 

" Herrmann's distress was so genuine that I at once offered 



HO THE ABT OF MAGIC. 

him a place in my tarantass, a long, low, black vehicle on 
runners, to which were attached six horses. I pictured to 
him the hardships of the journey, for which, I must con- 
fess, I had little taste myself ; but he was firm in his reso- 
lution, and quickly completing arrangements, we started on 
a ride which, but for the never-failing .good-nature and 
superior entertaining qualities of my versatile companion, 
would have been dreary indeed. 

" The days pass wearily along— some in wild, fierce storms 
of snow and sleet that howl around us as though all the 
demons of the steppe were up in arms ; some in bright sun- 
shine, whose intolerable glare blinds us and blisters our 
faces. From time to time we drive into darksome under- 
ground holes, hot and reeking, hover around the steaming 
samovar, pouring down oceans of boiling tea ; then out on 
the silent steppe again to continue our weary struggle. 
There are nights when we awaken from a half -frozen sleep 
and see nothing but the wide, snowy plain, silent and 
ghastly in the spectral moonlight. The icy winds from the 
north come rushing down in furious blasts with an unin- 
terrupted sweep of a thousand miles, and drive the snow 
about in whirlwinds that go scudding over the plain like 
giant spectres. Herrmann submits to all discomforts without 
a murmur. His jollity is infectious. Even our imperturb- 
able Kirghiz postilions smile at his little conceits, and 
marvel at the wonders he performs. They look upon him 
as an emissary of the devil. Kayala is finally reached. 
Herrmann is surrounded by his friends, and the warmth of 
their greeting makes ample amends for the hardships he has 
undergone. 

" ( You have won,' says Kourropatkin, c and you are none 



THE ART OF MAGIC. HI 

too soon, for Christmas in this country comes in advance of 
yours.' 

" 'Yes/ replied Herrmann, 'I have won, but I will not 
try it again. No, no. One such journey is enough.' 

" The dinner occurs the next day, and, reluctantly, I con- 
sent to remain over. Never have I spent a more delightful 
Christmas. There is no limit to the hospitality of these 
dashing Kussians. Away out on this barren plain, thousands 
of miles from civilization and our own comfortable firesides, 
we sit down to a repast fit for a king. At the table are 
gathered all the types of Kussian officerhood. Here is the 
gray-headed, hard-faced old major, who, without 'protec- 
tion,' had fought his sturdy way up through the grades, with 
long delays, much hard service, and many wounds. He 
had been an ensign in the Crimea, and afterward was for- 
gotten, for nobody knows how many years, in some odd 
corner of the Caucasus. He is only a major, poor old fellow, 
but he has half a dozen decorations. There is little in com- 
mon between him and the tall, stately, grizzled general by 
his side, who is an aide-de-camp of the Emperor ; a grand 
seigneur of the court, yet who has never forsworn the camp ; 
a man who will discuss with you the relative merits of Patti 
and Lucca ; who has yachted in the Mediterranean, shot 
grouse in the Scottish highlands, and hunted buffalo on the 
American prairies ; who wears decorations, too, some of 
them earned in battle, others as marks of imperial favor. On 
the other side of the table is a young hussar in blue and red. 
He can gallop, he can cut the sword exercise, he can sing 
French songs, and he would give his last cigarette to a 
comrade or a stranger, and in his secret heart he has vowed 
to win the cross of St. George. Everybody contributed to 



112 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

the entertainment, a spirited song from one, a recitation or 
a story from another ; but chief among them all was Herr- 
mann, with his inexhaustible store of tricks and his marvel- 
lous dexterity. The general's watch was found in the pocket 
of a subordinate, to the dismay of the latter and the delight 
of the assembled guests ; a solid gold decoration which the 
major had earned in the Khivan campaign, and from which 
he never parted, was found in a bottle of wine ; loaves of 
bread were transformed into oranges ; cards disappeared 
mysteriously in the air ; chairs were sent dancing around 
the room in the most provoking way ; different kinds of 
wine were taken at will from one bottle, and live fowls were 
discovered in the most singular places. It was the most 
novel Christmas dinner it ever was my fortune to attend. 
An entertainment full of surprises, and one that kept the 
guests in an hilarious state of merriment for several hours. 

" When it was over, Herrmann obtained permission to 
visit the prisoners' quarters. What a contrast to the place 
we had just left ! The poor wretches were huddled to- 
gether like sheep. Their food was bad, their scant clothing 
afforded but poor protection from the frosty air, and their 
misery was made more unbearable by the harsh words and 
cruel blows of the brutal keepers. Such a lot of haggard 
faces I never saw. Men whose eyes looked the despair that 
was slowly eating their lives away, and from whose hearts 
all hope had fled. Piteous looks of entreaty were cast upon 
us as we entered ; glances so full of woe and misery that 
they would melt a heart of stone. The sympathetic magi- 
cian took in the scene at a glance, and then began a per- 
formance that I have never seen equalled. Trick followed 
trick, each more wonderful than the preceding one. Amid 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 113 

the squalor and filth of this wretched pen, surrounded by 
convicts of all grades and with the atmosphere foul and sti- 
fling, Herrmann remained for nearly two hours, performing 
as he never performed before. Faces that had not known 
a smile for years relaxed and the dingy walls echoed with 
joyous laughter. With a wave of his magic wand, the magi- 
cian produced a Christmas-tree laden with dainties ; every- 
body was given a little present of some sort. In the delight- 
ful sensation of the moment the prisoners forgot their cares, 
their condition, their doom. Some were carried back to 
the innocent days of their childhood in far-off Russia, others 
were astonished at the almost supernatural powers of the 
man, and all were amused. Tears crept unbidden into the 
eyes of many when the time for departure came, and with 
hearts full of gratitude for the man who had given them 
the only taste of Christmas they had experienced in many 
years they bade us farewell. The friendship between the 
magician and myself, which began with our acquaintance at 
Orenberg, has continued unbroken ever since, and will con- 
tinue, I hope, to the end of my days." 

In the Evenement, published in Paris, we find the follow- 
ing account under the title "Soiree de Prestidigitation." 
" Monsieur Herrmann is the Paganini of prestidigitateurs. 
It is not only his technical dexterity which inspires us with 
this belief, but his physical resemblance also to the famous 
Italian artist. Tall, lean, an expressive head, hair and 
mustachios of jet-black color, there was lacking only a 
violin, when he appeared on the stage, to make us believe 
that we were about, after more than forty years, to listen 
to the famous ' Prayer of Moses,' executed upon the one 
cord only. Instead of this tour deforce, we have had others 
8 



114 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

which, while greatly differing, were not the less marvellous. 
Is it not a prodigy to see one of these servants of the sorcerer 
lay — through the mouth- — as many eggs as the master applied 
to him taps upon the head ? Is it a simple matter to have 
a California at the end of one's fingers, to such an extent 
abounded the five-franc pieces coming nobody knew from 
where, and which were falling in heaps from the noses of 
the spectators ? And that hat — ours, let us acknowledge it 
— transformed into a notion store, from which were taken out 
myriads of cards, miles of ribbons, and, still better, rabbits 
and ducks, . . . probably American, like their proprietor, 
which, however, does not alter the fact of their being authen- 
tic and alive too. The want of space prevents us from length- 
ening this description, but we must not omit to mention the 
charm which his fascinating companion adds to the miracles 
of Monsieur Herrmann. The diverse poses of Mme. Herr- 
mann in the ' Arabian dream' are the most graceful we 
have ever seen in the metropolis. . . ." 

The muscular force of Alexander Herrmann is one of his 
most remarkable traits. We saw him in several leading 
clubs of New York take a full pack of cards and tear them 
in two with his hands. 

In 1879 Herrmann went to Havana. He gave in that 
city nineteen representations, and on a Sunday afternoon 
appeared in the noted bull ring of Havana, where he per- 
formed the extraordinary and dangerous feat of allowing 
himself to be shot at by twelve soldiers, carrying as many 
Kemington rifles. The balls were marked by a committee. 
The audience stood breathless, and many women fainted, 
while strong men left the place, believing that a cold-blooded 
murder was about to be committed. Twelve thousand per- 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 115 

sons were there, and the receipts amounted to eight thou- 
sand dollars. 

When the rifles were loaded, Herrmann took them in his 
hands, whispered a few words in the barrels, and then ordered 
the soldiers to fire. The balls flew whizzing, and as fast as 
they came he received them in his hands, and passed them, 
still warm, into the hands of the committee. 

On leaving Havana he went to the City of Mexico. His 
first acquaintance there was with the then President, Diaz. 
It did not take long for Herrmann to win the friendship 
of the distinguished Mexican, and during the five months 
of his stay in that city his triumph was the greatest ever 
known. 

Soldiers were stationed nightly in the National Theatre 
to control the crowds that sought admittance notwith- 
standing the fact that not an inch of standing room could 
be Obtained. President Diaz, in order to express the strong 
friendship he felt for Herrmann, ordered a body-guard of 
twenty-five soldiers to follow him wherever he went. Orders 
were issued to all the dependencies of Mexico that the va- 
rious sub-governors were held responsible for his life. From 
Mexico he visited every part of Central America, where his 
success was simply a repetition of his triumphs in Mexico. 

Beaching Brazil, Herrmann and a few of his friends, 
among whom were several journalists, were walking in one 
of the principal streets of that city. A few steps ahead of 
them some laborers were paving the street. Herrmann 
whispered to his friends that he was going to astonish the 
workingmen. Thereupon he accosted one of them with 
his serious air, and lifting the foot of the man took from 
under it a gold piece valued at twenty dollars. The fellow 



116 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

demanded one-half of the amount, and Herrmann tried to 
explain to him who he was, and to reason with him, and 
told him that it was a trick. The man would accept no 
explanation and kept on demanding half of the troye. Herr- 
mann persisted that it was all nonsense for any one to claim 
money that did not belong to him. A crowd began to as- 
semble, and as the workingman cried for the police, Herr- 
mann was obliged to giye him one-half the amount, but 
made up his mind that it did not pay to play tricks on the 
Brazilian workingmen. 

It would take more space than our book affords to give 
one-half the incidents which have befallen Herrmann in the 
course of his life, and the number of times he has been the 
victim of the greed of man. 

For instance, in Cincinnati he was sitting with some of his 
friends emptying a few bottles of the "cheerful" (Herr- 
mann's designation for champagne) ; he was playing some of 
his tricks when a stranger approached him and asked whether 
he could change a fifty-cent piece into gold. Herrmann by 
a dexterous movement of the hands performed the trick, 
when the stranger, on the plea of examining the money, 
took the twenty-dollar gold piece, which belonged to Herr- 
mann, and walked off with it. 

At a noted gathering of bankers, among whom was the 
Baron de Eothschild, one of the leading brokers in the 
French capital approached Mr. Herrmann and told him he 
would give him five thousand francs if he would tell him 
what was passing at the time in the head of the Baron de 
Eothschild. Mr. Herrmann accepted the offer and told him 
that the baron's intention was to lift the shares of the Suez 
Canal which had been knocked down for several weeks past. 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 117 

The broker called Baron de Bothschild aside and told 
him in plain terms that he knew what the baron intended 
to do. Words fail to depict the astonished air of Eothschild, 
who supposed the matter was a secret known only to him- 
self. In vain did he try to find out how the broker became 
aware of his plans. The latter refused to divulge the source, 
but promised that no one else should know what was going 
on, and, as the price of *his secrecy, claimed the brokerage of 
all orders to be given by the baron. 

Herrmann claims that mind reading is "bosh," but while 
he has been unwilling to inform us how he knew what 
was going on in the mind of the baron, he asserts that this 
can be explained as well as any of his extraordinary feats. 
For the time being, however, he chooses to have the world 
mystified, until the time comes when, in a more pretentious 
book, his life, together with a full explanation of all the 
tricks, feats, mysteries, etc., with which his name has been 
identified, will be given to the world. 

To us, however, it is not the world-wide reputation of 
Herrmann, his marvellous intelligence, nor his dexterity, 
which has won our heart, and made us eager to publish this 
little volume. It is the unbounded charity of the man, for 
we know from an intimate acquaintance with him, that 
Alexander Herrmann gives one-fifth of his princely income 
to works of charity. 

While jn St. Petersburg, the municipality there wished 
to have a hospital erected for the wounded soldiers in the 
Eusso-Turkish War. The proceeds of three of his per- 
formances were given for that noble purpose. On the 
third night, which has remained ever memorable in 
the hearts of all Eussians, Herrmann took a hat from 



118 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

one of the spectators and out of the same produced the 
design of the hospital, which has been taken as a pattern 
for the one now erected. The oppressed and down-trodden 
people in Eoumania have cause to bless the day that he 
landed there, for it is mainly due to his work that the 
Polytechnic School of that city lives and flourishes. Let us 
also mention the fact that on his return to this country a 
year or two ago, when he became aware of the misfortune 
that had befallen Charleston, Herrmann, whose heart's throbs 
were never deaf to the cry of woe, gave a representation 
which netted $1,400, the whole amount of which he turned 
over to the Mayor of Charleston. 

In the city of Detroit one fine morning, a tall, slender 
man, with black, piercing eyes, entered a barber shop. He 
asked to be shaved, and as the knight of the razor was 
preparing to commence work, the dark-eyed man seized 
the razor from his hands, and with lightning rapidity laid 
it across his throat, from which the blood immediately 
spurted in torrents. The frightened barber and those pres- 
ent rushed out, the one for the police and the others for 
the doctor. When they returned they found the would-be 
suicide calmly arranging his necktie and not a trace of 
blood to be found anywhere in the shop. 

The crowd followed him to the hotel, where it wa;s dis- 
covered that the man who caused all this innocent commo- 
tion was our friend, Alexander Herrmann. 

A San Francisco paper thus describes a visit which Herr- 
mann paid to the Stock Board : " Herrmann visited the 
San Francisco Stock Board yesterday, and had, as one de- 
lighted 'bear' declared, 'great joy with the gang.' Un- 
announced, he walked into the centre ring and commenced 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 119 

operations by taking from a Mr. Budd's breast and skirt 
pockets a most astonishing number of cards, among which 
the needful ace was observed to be suspiciously plentiful. 
The first movement of Herrmann attracted everybody's at- 
tention, Baron Wilkie appearing particularly delighted at 
Mr. Budd's discomfort. At this, Herrmann turned upon 
Mr. Wilkie, and, taking him by the nose, caused a perfect 
stream of cards, principally jacks, to flow therefrom. 
Everybody inside the ring now gathered around Herrmann, 
and the Caller, seeing that his frantic yells of ' Belcher ! ' 
were unobserved, joined the crowd on the floor. As the 
Caller approached, Herrmann extended his hand and pro- 
ceeded to pull from his (the Caller's) coat-sleeve a pair of 
stockings, each about four feet long. Some one at this mo- 
ment tipped Herrmann's hat off. The magician caught it 
and took from it a twenty-dollar roll. The fun became gen- 
eral and uproarious now. Herrmann's hands were gliding 
like lightning in all directions. He extracted cigarettes and 
cigars from the brokers' ears and noses ; mixed their sup- 
plies of handkerchiefs up beyond recovery ; took rag babies 
and stumps of cigars out of the younger members' pockets, 
and from the older and more sedate members took chew- 
ing-gum, stick-candy, and dime novels. Mr. Schmieden, 
the most dignified broker on the floor, approached Herr- 
mann, who extended his hand with a four-bit piece in it. 
The broker tried to snatch it, when the magician flipped it 
into the air and it landed in his hand a twenty-dollar piece. 
Mr. Schmieden said, ' Gracious me ! That's easier than 
commissions in a big market.' Some impatient dealers in 
the lobby, who could not see all the fun, began to call out, 
' Oh, hire a hall ! ' e Why don't you pay a dollar and see 



120 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

him?' 'Go on with the call/ etc. Herrmann went up 
to one of the discontented on the outside of the rail, and 
taking the man's hat off, dug up out of it a double-handful 
of coin, remarking : 'Vat you yant to deal in stogs for ? 
Dat's de vay to make money/ The amazed 'chipper' 
retired in disgust. But there was no stopping the fun. 
Herrmann ran his fingers through Scott's curly hair and 
extracted a bunch of cigars, which he passed around to 
the crowd. He abashed Dan Yost by taking from his scarf 
a half-dozen scarf-pins belonging to other brokers. The 
Caller, tired with laughing, sat down in a chair and imme- 
diately got up — it was only a bent pin, but the Caller 
thought it was a shock of electricity. Several brokers took 
advantage of the opportunity to air their amateur abilities 
as magicians, and chairs began to tip and dance, hats flew 
off, handkerchiefs and pocket-books parted company with 
their owners, and a general confusion reigned until Herr- 
mann bowed himself out." 

* • • • • • • 

"The famous conjurer, Herrmann," says a French paper, 
"has arrived in Paris, after a sojourn of six months in 
South America. During a performance at the house of the 
Governor of Montevideo, Herrmann determined to mystify 
three half-savage Patagonians who were present, and whom 
no one dared to approach. He stupefied the first by tak- 
ing from his nose an orange ; he astonished the second by 
producing a number of silver coins from his hair ; but the 
third seemed overpowered with terror as a living rat was 
extracted from his nose. Uttering a cry of fright, the Pat- 
agonians withdrew, and the company congratulated Herr- 
mann upon his success. While receiving their congratu- 



J 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 



121 



lation, she suddenly discovered that his watch was gone, and 
that his chain had gone with it. His purse, too, had dis- 
appeared, and the thief had also appropriated his eyeglass 
and his pocket-handkerchief. Half an hour afterward the 
chief of the Patagonians returned, bringing the missing 
articles. The savage from whose nose the rat had been ex- 
tracted emptied the conjurer's pockets at the moment when 
he was pretending to be overcome with terror." 




We saw Herrmann perform, at his residence, the follow- 
ing extraordinary feats. 

"He placed a beautiful orange tree on a table ; he next 
borrowed a lady's ring and handkerchief, and putting them 
into a box, gave this to the lady to hold. Next he waved 
his wand over the orange tree, and immediately it began 
to blossom ; then, waving his wand again, the blossoms dis- 



122 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

appeared and several oranges gradually grew, which, he 
picked and handed to the company to prove they were real. 
He left, however, the one on top of the tree (which we par- 
ticularly noticed at the time). He waved his wand once 
more, and two butterflies flew out, fluttering their wings 
in the most natural manned, and each holding a corner 
of the handkerchief, which they gradually drew out from 
the centre of the orange with the ring suspended in the 
middle of it. These he restored to the owner, and the box 
was found empty when opened." 

. • • . o • • 

" He blindfolded a child and placed it in a basket which 
every one present examined and found to be perfectly 
empty. Closing the lid of the basket, the performer took 
a sharp sword and drove it repeatedly through the sides, 
till the screams of the child grew fainter, when the basket 
was opened and found to be empty. The child appeared 
hidden in the folds of the dress of Mme. Herrmann, who 
was seated in the rear of the parlor." 

• *.•... 

Before his Majesty, the King of Portugal, Mr. Herrmann 
performed the following marvel : 

Herrmann showed a cone, made of metal, beautifully 
japanned. He put his arm through it to prove that there 
was nothing concealed inside, and that it was simply a thin 
metal cone, without a top. He next took a common flower- 
pot and asked to have it filled with mould. Placing the 
cone on the top of the flower-pot, and taking great quan- 
tities of various kinds of seeds, he poured them inside the 
cone, until the interior was fall. Next, making some passes 
with his wand, he commanded the seeds to grow, and re- 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 123 

moving the cone, revealed a beautiful bouquet of flowers, 




much higher than the cone, while the seeds had all van- 
ished. The king expressed great admiration and surprise. 

Another feat performed by Herrmann : Three cards were 
chosen from a pack, placed back, shuffled, and the pack re- 
tained by one of those present. Herrmann left the room for 
a few moments after giving the above instructions. He re- 
turned with a sword in his hand and asked the gentleman 
holding the cards to throw the pack up toward the ceiling ; 
as the cards fell, he thrust his sword among them and caught 
the threajnarked cards on the blade of the sword. He 
took them off and passed them to us. 

• ...••* 

A few nights ago Mr. Herrmann borrowed at the house of 
a gentleman a ten-dollar note, requesting another friend to 



124 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 



take the number of it. While examining it to see whether 
the note was a good one, it unfortunately caught fire and 




was completely consumed. Herrmann appeared to be very 
sorry, and the owner, taking the matter to be in earnest, as- 
sured the professor that it was a mere trifle and not worth 
regretting. Thereupon Mr. Herrmann said, " I haye an 
idea — " He is always full of them. Sending for a can- 
dle, he cut it into pieces about an inch long and asked his 
friend in which piece he would like to find the bank-note. 
The piece chosen was broken in two, and there was the iden- 
tical bank-note perfectly uninjured. 



Mr. Herrmann borrowed our watch, placed it in a mortar 
and mashed it with a poker, pieces of the works being shown 
to us. The mortar was then covered for a moment, and 
when the cover was taken off the watch had vanished. His 
servant was next directed to bring a loaf of bread, and the 
watch was found in the centre of it uninjured. 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 125 

Mr. Herrmann desired a lady to write a sentence on a 
piece of paper, which the lady was requested to burn. This 
being done, a basket full of eggs was brought in and the lady 




asked to choose any egg she wished. The professor then 
broke the egg with his wand, and inside the paper written 
upon was found perfectly restored. 

. . • . . • • 

HERRMANN AND THE KING OF PORTUGAL. 

The King of Portugal, wishing to ascertain the truth of 
the stories related to him regarding Herrmann, invited him 
to the palace. 

" I am told you are the devil personified/' said the king 
to the magician. 

" It is the truth, sire," replied Herrmann, " although I am 
but a poor devil." 

" Perhaps you are, but I should like to have you prove to 
me the high reputation which you possess as a magician by 
exhibiting some of your feats before me, and without any 
previous preparation whatsoever." 

" The proof is given already," replied Herrmann. 

" How so ? " said the king, a little puzzled. 



126 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

"If your Majesty do me the favor of searching your 
pockets, you will find two oranges instead of the pocket-book 
and the handkerchief which were in your pocket when I 
entered here ; but if your chief attendant will search his 
pockets, he will find in them your pocket-book and handker- 
chief." 

All were astonished to find the two oranges in the king's 
pocket and the pocket-book and handkerchief in that of the 
chief attendant. , 

"This is nothing/' said Herrmann. "I want to show 
you something else. In which orange would you like to find 
your pocket-book and handkerchief ? " 




" In the one which I have in my right hand/' replied the 
king. 

"Very well, your Majesty. Mr. Chief Attendant, will 
you please hold tight in your hands the objects found in 
your pockets ? Now, will your Majesty be kind enough to 
cut the orange ? " 

The king did so, and inside of the orange were the pocket- 
book and handkerchief, while a bird came out of the hand 
of the astonished chief attendant and escaped through the 
open window. 

During all this time Herrmann did not even approach the 
king or the chief attendant. 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 127 

"Now, sire/' continued the master of the black art, with- 
out paying attention to the surprise of all who were present, 
" do me the favor to choose one of your own pistols and load 
it with six bullets which you mark with your own hand." 

After the king did it Herrmann said, " Please direct the 
pistol against my hand and fire." 

This was too much ; the king did not want to do it, and 
the princess protested energetically. 

"Much obliged to you, your Majesty, for the interest you 
manifest in my behalf, but let the King fire at me without 
scruple ; I am the yery devil, and you cannot kill the devil 
with a pistol-shot." 

Upon this declaration of Herrmann that it was not at all 
dangerous to fire, the king pointed the pistol and off went 
the shots. A cry of horror arose, and the eyes of all were 
fixed upon Herrmann, who, enveloped in the smoke produced 
by the explosion, presented to the king five of the bullets, 
the sixth having penetrated a mirror behind Herrmann a 
little above his shoulder. 

" The pistol was well loaded," said Herrmann, pointing 
to the broken mirror. "It is a pity such a beautiful piece 
of furniture has been damaged. If you will allow it, I 
shall try immediately to repair it. Will your Majesty please 
give orders to cover the mirror with a curtain ? " 

When this was done, Herrmann said, " Now I shall load 
the same_pistol and fire at the mirror." 

He fired, the curtain fell down, and the mirror was intact. 

All were full of wonder that such things could take 
place in the salon of a king and in the presence of the 
court, where no preparations had been made. Nobody 
could explain or comprehend this action of Herrmann. 



128 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

HERRMAIO" AT THE WASHIKGTOH MARKET. 

Accompanied by two newspaper reporters and several of 
his friends, Herrmann entered the Washington Market, 
walked about the stalls, passing from one place to the other, 
in a listless manner, apparently killing time, asking the 
price of one thing and another, and chatting in a friendly 
manner with the vendors of provisions. When it was 
whispered around that the famous wizard was in the 
market, a crowd assembled and stood gazing at him. Gradu- 
ally it increased to such an extent that the police had to in- 
terfere and keep the crowd back. Herrmann pretended not 
to notice what was going on about him, and, in fact, seemed 
undecided what to do, when his attention was called to an 
egg-stand behind which a nice-looking Irish woman was 
posted. He looked for a moment at the eggs, and said : 

" How much for eggs to-day ? " 

"Fifteen cents a dozen; fresh ones/' 

" Give me a dozen, please, but on one condition. I want 
to break them, and whether you or I do it, it is understood 
whatever will be found inside of them will be mine." 

" Well, of course, I don't want what the eggs contain in- 
side, if once they are paid for." 

Herrmann took an egg and broke it, when lo ! there were 
four five-dollar gold pieces in the shell. Seeing the shining 
metal, the eyes of the woman almost started from their 
sockets. She looked at the crowd which surrounded her 
stand, and with astonishment exclaimed : 

"How is that?" 

"They are valuable eggs, those you sell," said Herrmann, 
and giving one to the woman, " Will you please break this 
one for me ? " 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 129 

The woman took the egg, looked at Herrmann's face, 
and broke it with trembling hands. It contained the same 
amount of money as the first one ; four five-dollar gold 
pieces were in the shell again. She closed her hand in- 
voluntarily, when the magician said to her : 

" Hold on, madame ; you know that the contents of all 
those eggs belong to me." As she was giving him the 
money, he asked : " How much do you want for all your 
eggs?" 

Another woman who occupied the stand next to her, 
called out : " Don't sell another one of those eggs ; why, 
they all, of course, belong to you.'' 

"They are not for sale, sir," replied the Irish woman. 

The crowd which surrounded the egg-stand amounted 
already to hundreds of persons. One after the other the 
eggs were broken by Herrmann and by the woman, until the 
one dozen bought were all broken, and each one contained 
the four five-dollar gold pieces. The crowd was constantly 
increasing, and Herrmann could make his way through it 
only with the assistance of the police. 

CONFUSION Itf A STREET-CAR. 

A very extraordinary scene occurred a few years ago in 
car No. 12 of the Third Avenue line. The car was running 
down town with a mixed cargo of occupants, as is generally 
the case, when a well-dressed gentleman entered it at the 
corner of Sixteenth Street. The car, however, was so full 
that the gentleman had to stand on the platform. He 
stood there for about five minutes, when inside of the car a 
great confusion arose, one of the passengers exclaiming that 
his watch was gone, another swearing because his pocket- 



130 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

book had disappeared, while an old Irish woman, dealing in 
apples, asserted in the strongest words she could command 
that all the apples in her basket were missing. She was 
greatly excited at being so shamefully treated. Two old 
spinsters joined in the shrieks of the Irish woman, one of 
them declaring that she missed her handkerchief and 
the other her pocket-book. The affair grew serious ; the 
conductor stopped the car, and went in search of a police- 
man ; then a well-known merchant made the proposition 
that everybody should be searched. His proposition was 
accepted by acclamation, and the operation took place in 
presence of the policeman, who arrived with the conductor. 
The following scene ensued, which well-nigh beggars descrip- 
tion : In the coat-pockets of the above-mentioned merchant 
were found, to his great surprise and confusion, some of the 
apples missed by the Irish woman ; a few more were found 
in the pockets of the gentleman who claimed to have lost 
his watch, and about half a dozen in the pockets of the two 
old spinsters, while the lost pocket-book and handkerchief 
were found in the pockets of the lately arrived policeman, 
and two live rabbits were drawn from the inside wide coat 
pockets of the conductor. The agitation had reached its 
highest point. All were standing and violently talking to 
each other. But the watch and the other pocket-book were 
still missing, when the gentleman who, as it has been said, 
had been compelled to stand on the platform of the car, 
and who, owing to the confusion, secured for himself a seat 
inside the car, stooped and quietly picked up two apples, in 
which he discovered the missing watch and pocket-book. 

Immediately this gentleman was recognized by one of the 
passengers as the magician, Herrmann, who explained to 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 131 

those present that he had performed this whole trick for the 
sole purpose of getting a seat inside of the car, as he felt too 
tired to stand on the platform. He begged to be excused for 
the liberty he had taken. Everybody laughed heartily ex- 
cepting the apple-woman, who was still grumbling about the 
loss of her apples, but Herrmann, without being seen, put 
a gold-piece into her hand. Fully satisfied, she left the car 
with her empty basket. 

THE DEVIL'S MIRROR. 

Take a square box about six inches long and twelve inches 
high, or of any proportionate dimensions. Cover the interior 
with four mirrors, locating them perpendicularly to the bot- 
tom of the box. Put at the bottom any desired object, as a 
tin soldier, paper castles, etc. Put over the box a glass 
frame, which must have the form of the base of a pyramid, 
and must be arranged in such a way that it falls upon the 
box like a cover. The four sides of this frame must be of 
glass, or be covered from inside with gauze, in order that the 
light may penetrate without being seen through the upper 
part, which must consist of transparent glass. On looking 
through this glass, beautiful scenery can be seen, and of un- 
limited extent. If prepared with care, this mirror affords a 
good deal of amusement. 

THE CHANGING COLN". 

For this trick take two false gold-pieces and two silver 
pieces which resemble quarters. Eub the latter upon a stone 
until they become only half as thick as they were, and join- 
ing each yellow coin with a white one, you will have appar- 
ently two pieces of coin, each of them seeming to be a gold 
coin on one side and a silver coin on the other. Some 



132 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

cement may be employed to keep the coins together ; but if 
one is of soldering metal, regulus, or antimony, and the other 
contains iron, they will stick together by contact and the 
pressure of the hand. Take one of these double coins in 
your hand, the yellow side upward ; now let the public ob- 
serve your manipulations, which consist in closing both your 
hands, shaking them, or putting one upon the table and the 
other under the table and ordering the. coins to change. 
While manipulating, change the coins in your hands and 
show them to the public changed. This trick will always 
create amusement, and especially if the magician in the be- 
ginning takes from the audience a gold coin and a silver 
one of the size of a quarter ; of course, not to use in his 
trick, but merely to impart more reality to the perform- 
ance. 

HOW TO KAIL A CARD TO THE WALL BY A PISTOL-SHOT. 

Take a card and tell the person who has chosen it from a 
pack to cut off one corner and keep the piece, in order to 
recognize again the card chosen. The card is burned to 
ashes, and a pistol is loaded with gunpowder mixed with the 
ashes of the card. Instead of a bullet put into the pistol a 
nail marked by some one in the audience. The pack is then 
thrown into the air, the pistol fired, and the card which has 
been reduced to ashes is seen nailed to the wall. Take it 
down, compare it with the piece in the hands of the person 
who chose the card, and show that the card nailed to the wall 
is exactly the same, and that also the nail is the same which 
had been previously marked. The operation is as follows : 
When the magician sees that a corner has been cut from one 
of the cards, he goes away under some pretext and makes a 



THE ART OF MAGIC, 133 

similar cut in another card. When he returns, he takes the 
chosen card, places it among the rest of the pack, changes it 
dexterously for the one prepared by himself, and finally re- 
duces the latter to ashes. When the pistol is loaded, he takes 
it, saying that he wantsto show how it has to be fired, and in 
the mean time opens a hole in the pistol and takes out the 
nail, which falls into his hand by its own weight. Closing 
the hole in the pistol again, he requests some one to put 
in more gunpowder, and during this time the magician 
passes the nail and the card to his assistant, who quickly 
nails the card on a piece of square wood which fits closely 
into a square hole in the wall covered with a piece of wall 
paper of the same design as the rest. The hole is above a 
mirror, the piece of wall paper covering it is fastened to the 
wall by pins, and a thread is attached to its lower part. 
When the assistant hears the detonation of the pistol, he 
pulls the thread, the covering piece of wall paper falls down 
behind the mirror, and the card can be seen nailed to the 
wall. 

THE BURNED PACK OF CARDS FOUND INSIDE A WATCH. 

Let some of the spectators choose a card from a pack ; 
request three gentlemen each to lend you his watch, and 
wrap each watch in a different piece of paper in the form 
of a drinking-cup and place these upon the table, covering 
them with a napkin. Burn now the chosen card, and put 
the ashes into a small box ; a moment afterward open this 
box and no ashes will be found in it. The three watches 
are placed upon a plate, and anybody can select one of them ; 
the same person opens the watch and finds inside of the glass 
cover a piece of the card burned, and inside the other cover 



134 THE ART OF MAGIC. 

a miniature card like the one burned. The following is the 
method of executing this trick : As soon as you tell your as- 
sistant which card has been chosen, he takes from the table 
one of the watches, in which he deposits " what is neces- 
sary." The watches are covered with a napkin sustained 
by bottles or something else, so that the confederate's hand 
cannot be seen, nor the movement of the napkin. To make 
the ashes in the small box invisible, place under the cover of 
it a piece of paper cut exactly to the size of the cover and 
of the same color as the interior of the box ; when the box 
is closed, this paper will fall down and cover the ashes at the 
bottom, leaving the spectators bewildered and believing that 
these ashes have produced the miniature card found in one 
of the watches. 

THE TRICK OF THE ROSE. 

Take a common well-developed rose, place on a hot coal 
a little powder of sulphur, let the rose absorb a little of the 
% _ smoke, and it will become almost white. When the rose has 
been cut from the bush for some time, it will be completely 
white. Piit.it for a while in water and after a few hours it 
will again assume its red color. 

THE DEVIL IK A SMOKIKG PIPE. 

Take one ounce of saltpetre, one ounce cream of tartar, 
half an ounce of sulphur, and pulverize each ingredient sep- 
arately. Afterwards mix them all together and keep them 
in a paper inside of your pocket. Then put a grain or two 
in a tobacco-pipe, and when lighted it will produce the same 
detonation as a gun-shot, but will not destroy the pipe. A 
quantity as large as can be carried under the finger-nail 
can be put into a piece of paper which will produce, when 



THE ART OF MAGIC. 135 

lighted, a report equal to that of several cannon, but with- 
out doing any damage. 

WALKING UPON RED-HOT IRON. 

Dissolve one half ounce of camphor in two ounces aqua- 
vitae, add one ounce of quicksilver and one ounce of liquid 
styrax, which is the product of the myrrh, and which does 
not allow the camphor to ignite ; take besides two ounces of 
red-stone, and let it be pulverized ; mix all together, and 
when you want to walk upon a piece of red-hot iron, rub 
your feet well with this composition and you can execute 
the trick without any inconvenience whatsoever. 

HOW TO KEEP FOUR KINGS TOGETHER. 

Take the four kings out of a complete deck of cards and 
have under them three other cards without this being 
known by the audience. Show that the four kings are to- 
gether, and place them on top of the whole pack. Divide^ 
the deck into four parts, placing the four kings and the 
three cards under them on top of one of the parts. Take 
now the first three cards from the top of the first part and 
put one of them on top of each of the other three parts, and 
taking the top card from the first part show it to the spec- 
tators to be a king. Now put one part over the other until 
you have the whole pack in one pile, and when you let fall the 
cards onJthe table the four kings will be together. 



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